She asked Santa for a violin at age 3. Now Lauren Roth-Gómez is an ASO soloist

Caption

Lauren Roth-Gomez

Credit: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Lauren Roth-Gómez was just two years old when she set her sights on playing violin. She would go on to earn music degrees from the University of Washington in her native Seattle and the Cleveland Institute of Music and spend 11 years as the concertmaster of the Tuscon Symphony. 

Then in 2024 she landed the position of assistant concertmaster, or third-seat player, of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. A year later, as the acting associate concertmaster (second chair, for those keeping score), she got to solo alongside David Coucheron in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. Their performance airs April 5 through April 8 on The ASO on GPB. 

Lauren Roth-Gómez stopped by GPB to talk with Sarah Zaslaw about her history with the Bach Double and other bits of her background—including quite determinedly asking Santa for her very first instrument.

Interview Highlights

Edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Zaslaw: This was basically your debut as a soloist with the Atlanta Symphony. It’s not the hardest piece in the book, but did it feel like a big deal to you?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: There’s no way to have your name as a soloist in the program book and look in your closet to decide which fancy dress you’ll put on that weekend and not have it be a big deal. It’s true that it’s maybe not the most technically challenging piece, and it’s certainly not the longest or most involved, but there’s no way that it can kind of be a normal week. 

Sarah Zaslaw: The Bach Double has two similar violin parts that kind of answer each other, they intertwine and bounce things back and forth. It’s kind of a milestone for students coming up — like, if you take Suzuki violin lessons, one part’s in Book 4, one part’s in Book 5. What’s your history with the piece? How far back do you go?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: Straight to that Suzuki Book 4 and 5, like you mentioned. I definitely learned both parts of the Bach Double as I progressed through the Suzuki books myself as a youngster. It’s kind of funny because when I was in a Suzuki violin studio, the group classes would often involve playing the Bach Double, for whoever were the oldest students in the class or the most advanced, and so I knew the piece and heard the piece actually as a very young student. And then it was sort of this rite of passage to be able to play them myself, and then to be to play both parts, and then interchange. And I would kind of get pointed to, "OK, you play the first part this time," or "You go over to that other group." So I’ve played this piece many times, I’ve heard it many, many times. It’s kind of an oldie but goodie. 

Sarah Zaslaw: Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. How, when, why, where did you start violin?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: The story goes — I don’t totally remember this myself; the determination I showed, I remember, but I don’t remember the exact events. It was just before my third birthday that I asked for three things for Christmas from Santa Claus. I wanted lipstick, eye shadow, and a violin. That was my list. Only three items. 

And Christmas rolled around. I remember the little Tinkerbell makeup set that I got. I remember the compact and probably a little lipstick, lip gloss thing. And then I got a hand-me-down violin from the next-door neighbors. But by the time it arrived to me, it was not really in playable condition. And I was extremely upset and I thought “This cannot be!” I really wanted a violin, and a real violin. I didn’t think I had to specify that, but yes, a real one that played. 

My mom was kind of shocked by my reaction because she thought Santa Claus had done his duty. But I made it clear that I really wanted a real violin, I wanted to play the violin, and I wanted my first lesson on my third birthday, which was going to be a month later. So actually that’s really how it all began. My mom found a Suzuki teacher in the Seattle area who was willing to take a 3-year-old, and I had my first violin lesson on my third birthday. 

Sarah Zaslaw: You went to the University of Washington. Tell me about doing two degrees in one.  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: I ended up with a bachelor’s of music, of course, in violin performance, and my bachelor of arts degree was actually in Italian studies. And I really just got into that because I grew up studying and speaking a decent amount of French. I have family on my mom’s side that actually live in Tahiti, and so in French Polynesia you speak French. I don’t necessarily go there a lot, but there was a small opportunity for me to practice French from time to time. 

So I got to the University of Washington and needed a language requirement, and honestly, I just happened to grab a spot in one of the Italian 101 classes in the afternoon, which was a shocker because they tended to fill up quickly — nobody wanted the 8:00 in the morning. So I sort of fell into that coveted spot just when registering for classes, and I thought it would be interesting for my violin studies and just for music in general. And because of my background in French, also being a Romance language, I took to it pretty well and ended up with a double degree.  

Sarah Zaslaw: Fast-forward and you go to the Cleveland Institute of Music, where you become part of the select Concertmaster Academy. Is there a separate career track for violinists who want to be concertmasters?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: The kind of training that I received that might have been, we could say, concertmaster-specific, included some lessons where I remember sitting down in a chair in Mr. Preucil’s room and we would mimic what I would look like and what sort of motions I might show to be a concertmaster of a given piece or given symphony. Sometimes Mr. Preucil would pull up a chair just in the middle of the room and we would say, "OK, let’s pretend like you’re sitting in this chair and it is the concertmaster chair. How do you cue such-and-such? Or how do we begin this symphony? What do you do after the cutoff of this moment in this particular piece?" 

And I received wonderful instruction about how to interpret or understand what cues were coming from the podium and maybe how best to support those cues. Because a concertmaster is really in dialogue with the conductor, and the concertmaster’s role is so crucial because a conductor doesn’t make any sound from the podium. … I’ve had conversations with some wind players or brass players who say that, yes, they are watching the conductor for a given cue, but they also have either an eye or peripheral eye on the concertmaster’s bow. Because wherever the concertmaster’s bow lands and starts moving on the string, that’s where the sound actually begins. 

Sarah Zaslaw: And you still get to be a guest concertmaster other places. You’ve been to the Savannah Philharmonic recently, right?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: Yes, absolutely. It was great. My friend is the music director there, Keitaro Harada. I’ve worked with him several times before, in Tucson also, and being a guest concertmaster in a place like Savannah again is a chance to reconnect with friends and do so under the name of music. It’s really fun to be able to carry my violin from city to city, and going to Savannah was wonderful. The city is extremely charming and I’d not yet had the opportunity to walk around the streets and see the parks, I swear, on every corner. It was really wonderful, beautiful, and the city was very welcoming.  

Sarah Zaslaw: Do you have any general practicing advice?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: I would just say: A little bit at a time. When I get asked “How much do you practice on average every day,” the easiest way to answer is to just say, “Well, whatever I do is not enough because it feels like you could always be practicing and honing that skill or improving here learning that lick.” But overall, practicing tips include doing something and just practicing even a little bit. The consistency is really what matters, and the quality more than the quantity. I believe in little bursts of and spurts of genius. Just get the instrument out and get something done for the day, get the fingers working somehow. And over time, I really do think that the changes are extraordinary, even when we’re in the grind, day to day.  

Sarah Zaslaw: And then there is life beyond music. What else do you like to do?  

Lauren Roth-Gómez: Certainly, and that actually is important for your musicmaking too, I’ve learned. I really enjoy sports and I always grew up playing lots of sports so I tend to be active and I enjoy getting outside or getting to some sort of workout class where I kind of get yelled at and I mimic what I remember from my sports practices as a kid. But in all seriousness, I do like watching and playing sports, and my husband and I are into tennis these days, which is fun. We’re big Carlos Alcaraz fans. And I’m trying to learn how to be a better cook, so I have to think of that as practicing just a little bit at a time — a little practice over time makes a difference. 

And I’ve enjoyed getting to know Atlanta a little. I live pretty much in the city, but I have never really spent a ton of time in this part of the country. Growing up in the Northwest, I’m on the other corner of the of the country. So this has been fun. I had no idea how green it was, and I have explored a little bit and will intend to do more in terms of hiking and getting outside.