In the Morning News (Florence, S.C.) on Sunday (1/4), Melissa Rollins profiles Terry Roberts, music director of the Florence Symphony Orchestra and a professor at that city’s Francis Marion University. The son of a music educator, he “ ‘started just like everyone else, on piano, when I was 6,’ Roberts said.… ‘I thought that the trombone was cool, because you could play “Dixie” and jazz. My dad told me to try the horn, and if I didn’t like it, we would talk about it later. Once I started to play the horn, we never had the conversation about the trombone again.’ ” Following horn studies at Florida State University and in Germany, Roberts pursued an orchestral career in Europe, then took up conducting and enrolled in a doctoral program at FSU. In 2003, when his wife, dancer Susan Rowe, “had an opportunity to work with the South Carolina Dance Theatre in Florence, Roberts found himself at the helm of the Florence Symphony Orchestra. He said that it has been wonderful seeing the group and its programs grow. ‘We used to only have four concerts a year,’ Roberts said. ‘Now we have eight. There has really been amazing support in Florence for the symphony.’ ”
Posted January 8, 2015
