Born in Canada, clarinetist Heather Roche trained in England, lived in Germany for 7 years and now lives in London.
She has performed at most of the major European festivals, including musikFest (Berlin), BachFest (Leipzig), Musica Nova (Helsinki), Acht Brücken (Cologne), the International Computer Music Conference (Huddersfield, Ljubljana), the Dias de Música Electroacústica (Seia, Portugal) the Bludenzer Tage (Bludenz, Austria), and the Agora Festival (Ircam, Paris). She has also performed solo programmes at the Zagreb Music Biennale, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the New York Electroacoustic Symposium, at CIRMMT (Montreal), Sound Festival (Aberdeen), Unerhörte Musik (Berlin), Eavesdropping (London), Rainy Days (Luxembourg) and with the Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST).
She has premiered many solo works for her instrument, including pieces by Maija Hynninen, Simon Emmerson, Martin Iddon, Lisa Robertson, Christopher Fox, Dai Fujikura, Martin Rane Bauck, Chikako Morishita, Michelle Lou, etc. In 2020, Scott McLaughlin wrote his clarinet concerto, Natura Naturans, for her, and it was premiered at Tectonics (Glasgow) with the BBCSSO under Ilan Volkov. Her CD of Martin Iddon’s clarinet music, Sapindales, recently sold out on the Another Timbre label.
In 2015 she formed a duo with the German accordionist Eva Zöllner, with whom she has performed at the Venice Biennale, MIXTUR festival (Barcelona), the Darmstadt Summer Courses, Gaudeamus (Holland), and the Bludenzer Tage (Austria). They also toured extensively in Mexico (2019), Sweden (2021) and Colombia (2022). They have commissioned dozens of new pieces for their duo, including works by Annika Socolofsky, Elnaz Seyedi, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Christopher Fox, and Johan Svensson. Their latest call for composers (supported by NeuStart Kultur) attracted 100 applications from around the world, from which they chose four – which will be premiered in January 2023 in Germany. www.zoellner-roche.com
