Originally from Valencia, California, Matthew Roitstein is the Principal Flutist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He came to St. Louis in 2022 after eight years as Associate Principal Flutist with the Houston Symphony, with whom he toured through Europe and South America, and had also been featured as a concerto soloist on multiple occasions.
Previously a member of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and Sarasota Opera Orchestra, Roitstein has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco, Dallas, Detroit, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. Music festival appearances include the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Britt Festival Orchestra, Arizona Musicfest, Aspen, and Sarasota Music Festivals. Roitstein can be heard on recordings with the Houston Symphony and New World Symphony, as well as on Gloria Estefan’s 2013 album, The Standards. In 2018 he recorded Studies in Nature, a trio for flute, viola, and harp by award-winning composer Karim Al-Zand, on an album of Al-Zand’s chamber music. This year, Roitstein is releasing his own first album, featuring John Harbison's Duo for Flute and Piano, and the premiere recordings of newly commissioned pieces by Amanda Harberg, Karim Al-Zand, and Matthew's father, David Roitstein.
An enthusiastic educator, Roitstein has taught extensively in the U.S. as well as throughout South and Central America. He has been on the faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp since 2018, and he taught at Bard College from 2021 to 2023. Roitstein’s orchestral career was most influenced by two particularly impactful periods in his own education: his fellowship at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, and his graduate studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music under conductor Larry Rachleff. He received his Bachelor's Degrees in both architecture and music from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was the 2007 winner of the MIT Symphony Concerto Competition. His primary flute teachers were Leone Buyse and Seta Der Hohannesian, and other significant influences include Mark Sparks, Elizabeth Rowe, Stephen Kujala, Gary Woodward, Pedro Eustache, and Matthew’s mother, Rosy Sackstein.
Matthew Roitstein is a Powell Artist and plays on a handmade 14K Powell flute.