Artistic Associate
Esteban La Rotta, Early Plucked Strings
Esteban La Rotta is one of Canada’s leading lutenists. In demand as both a soloist and continuo player, he studied at the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano with Paul Beier, and in Montreal with Sylvain Bergeron where he received his doctorate in performance in 2008 concentrating on the baroque guitar. His interest in the origins of the lute as a polyphonic instrument brought him to pursue a specialization on the solo repertoire for lute in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under the guidance of Crawford Young and Hopkinson Smith. As a specialist in a variety of early plucked instruments, La Rotta has extensive experience with the early renaissance repertoire as well as with Baroque Italian and French repertoire for solo theorbo. He is a regular participant at Festival Montréal Baroque and collaborated regularly with ensembles such as the Copenhagen Soloists, Ensemble Gilles Binchois, Les Violons du Roy, Les Voix Humaines, Les idées Heureuses, the SMAM, Ensemble Caprice, and Pallade Musica. He has appeared in numerous festivals including Musique Royale, Boston Early Music Festival, Seattle Early Music Guild, Tage Alter Musik (Regensburg), Lamèque Early Music Festival, Stratford Festival, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and the Orford Music Festival. His performances have been broadcast on the CBC in Canada and the BBC in England. He can be heard on the Atma label, both as a soloist and with Pallade Musica, and on the Passacaille and Recercare labels. Since 2017 La Rotta teaches early music ensembles at McGill University
