Jean Rogister
Jean François Toussaint Rogister (25 October 1879 in Liège – 20 March 1964 in Liège) was a Belgian virtuoso violist, teacher and composer. Life and career. Jean Rogister came from a family of musicians; his father was a flautist and his brothers Fernand Rogister (1872–1954), a horn player and composer, Chrétien Rogister (pseudonym Caludi) (1884–1941), a violinist and composer, and Hubert Rogister, a cellist. A musically gifted child, Rogister studied violin, viola, horn and composition at the Liège Conservatory. Rogister studied composition with Jean-Théodore Radoux, and viola with Désiré Heynberg (1831–1898) and Oscar Englebert. He emerged a virtuoso  viola player, and at the age of twenty-one, he was appointed Professor of Viola (1900–1945) at the Liège Conservatory. Rogister performed in chamber ensembles and made his debut in 1902 as violist of the Charlier Quartet led by Léopold Charlier. It was also at this time that Rogister completed his String Quartet No. 1. He continued to study composition and play in chamber music ensembles including Cercle Ad Artem, the Chaumont Quartet, and Piano et Archets. In 1923, he left for the United States where he briefly led the viola section in the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under the direction  of Leopold Stokowski. Returning to Liège, Rogister became a founding member of the Quatuor de Liège in 1925 along with violinists Henri Koch (1903–1969) and Joseph Beck, and cellist Lydia Rogister-Schor. The ensemble toured throughout in Europe and the United States to great acclaim. Rogister, like his composition teacher Radoux, composed largely in the neo-romantic style of César Franck, occasionally introducing his own modernistic Impressionistic sonorities. He composed eight string quartets and other chamber music, symphonic works including "Jeux symphoniques" (1952), concertante works for viola, violin, cello and trombone, and vocal works including a "Requiem" (1944). Jean Rogister