Eva-Charlotte Roslin Slawinski

1980 -

Eva-Charlotte Roslin Slawinski, a Swedish conductor, violinist, and singer, is music director in the Swedish Union for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She frequently performs as a soloist and in chamber ensembles and orchestras and is also known for her work in the Grand String Quartet and her membership in and leadership of a family choir.

Eva-Charlotte was born and raised in Grenna, a small town in Sweden, surrounded by a family where music was an important activity. Her great-great grandfather, Carl Herman, was a noted folk fiddler in Dalarna for whom a popular folk song, “Carl Herman and I,” was written. Both parents enjoy music and sing in choirs, and her mother plays the piano. Even though she is one of two children and the only daughter, she has several cousins her age, and the extended family and some friends are members of the Grenna Singers, a choir that was started over thirty years ago.

She started violin at age four, taking Suzuki class lessons along with all of the other children from the local SDA church, her mother assisting Eva-Charlotte with her practice in the Suzuki tradition of having a parent involved. She also started piano lessons at that time with her mother guiding her progress.

At age nine she first wrote about her interest in becoming a conductor and by age eleven had become motivated enough to practice two hours daily. She began taking lessons from a Hungarian teacher at age fourteen, becoming his student under the condition that she would apply to a music college. At age fifteen she applied to two schools and though three years younger than the usual acceptance age, was invited to be a student at the Royal University of College in Stockholm.

In the next seven years Roslin completed a master’s degree in violin and fine arts in 2000 and a B.A. in conducting in 2003 at RUCS, the youngest ever in Sweden to do so at that age. She also studied orchestral and choral conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, University for the Performing Arts in Vienna, and Peter the Great Music Academy in St. Petersburg. She studied under Professor Jorma Panula in Finland, Professor Uros Lajovic in Vienna, Maestros Herbert Blomstedt in Switzerland and Alexander Polianichko, conductor at the Mariiskitheatre in St. Petersburg.

She entered the 2002 Nordic Conductors’ Competition in Helsingborg and the 2003 Swedish Conductors’ Competition in Stockholm and won second in both competitions. In 2005 she received the Crusell Scholarship, a biennual award given to young and talented Swedish conductors.

Roslin has played as a soloist in numerous countries in Europe and also in the United States, performing at the church’s General Conference Session in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2005. Roslin has produced two CDs in which she conducts the choirs, plays the violin, and sings solos in works she has arranged.

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Sources: Interview with Audrey Andersson, “Eva-Charlotte Roslin: Dialogue with an Adventist Educator from Sweden,” (SDA) College and University Dialogue. Other information online (20130 Eva -Charlotte Roslin can be contacted at: www.evacharlotteroslin.com