Dominique Roggen was born in Münsingen, near Berne, Switzerland. After working as a primary school teacher he studied the viola with Max Rostal and completed his conducting studies with Rudolf Kempe in Munich. After winning a prize from the Hermann-Suter Foundation he continued his studies with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein in the USA. There followed a variety of successful jobs, as a director of music in the concert hall and in the theatre.
Roggen is active in CD recordings, radio and television broadcasts and has held guest-conductorships in many European countries as well as in the USA and Japan. He is the founder and long-time director of the Berne Baroque Ensemble. In 1983 Roggen became the first Swiss conductor to be invited to conduct the most famous symphony orchestras in the People’s Republic of China – the Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He is Professor in Conducting at the Hochschule der Künste Bern (HKB) and in 1987 became Chief Conductor of the chamber orchestra “Tempo Giusto”.
Roggen is regarded as a distinguished all-round musician. Not only has he gained a varied repertoire through his long-held position as principal viola of the Chamber Ensemble of Radio Berne and as a member of the Berne Symphony Orchestra, but he is also highly successful as an extremely imaginative arranger and composer. He has a special affinity with eighteenth-century music and his virtuoso technique marks him out as a specialist in neoclassical music.
