Dorothy Cole

As a young child growing up in Seattle, Dorothy was enchanted with the cello. She began taking lessons and by high school was a member of the Seattle Youth Symphony. Following graduation, she caught the train to Rochester, New York and continued her cello studies at Eastman School of Music.

Early professional work was with orchestras in Colorado and New York  state. After moving to North Carolina, she performed with the Eastern Music Festival and the Greensboro Symphony before joining the Charlotte Symphony in 1977. Charlotte has been her home ever since. A high point of her Charlotte Symphony tenure was a performance of the Brahms' Second Piano Concerto in which she played the famous cello solo.

Dorothy plays an English cello made by Benjamin Banks in 1778. When not performing with the CSO, Dorothy is likely to be making pottery at Clayworks or volunteering at Hospice. Dorothy has two grown children; Matthew, a paramedic for Durham County and Rebecca, a cellist with the Virginia Symphony (formerly principal cellist of the Charlotte Youth Symphony) and mother of Benjamin, Dorothy's extraordinary grandson.

Alice Merrill Kavadlo

Principal violist Ali Kavadlo is a native of the great state of New Mexico. She was born in Santa Fe, grew up in Farmington (in the four corners area) and lived in Albuquerque for six years until she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a BME degree, magna cum laude. Her violin teacher at UNM was Kurt Frederick, of blessed memory. At UNM, Ali was elected to Pi Kappa Lamda, national music honor society and Phi Kappa Phi, national scholastic honor society and was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota, women's music fraternity. Ali earned her MM degree in violin performance from the University of Southern California with high distinction. At USC, her violin teacher was Eudice Shapiro and her string quartet coach Gabor Rejto. She held a graduate fellowship as the second violinist of USC's highly acclaimed graduate string quartet.

During graduate school, Ali played violin for several summers in the Festival Orchestra at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, where she met her husband, Gene, who is the CSO's Principal Clarinetist. From LA, Ali moved to New York City, where she spent two years teaching elementary school music and studying viola with Michael Tree of the Guarneri String Quartet and with William Lincer of the Juilliard School.  It was in NY that Ali and Gene were married. The Kavadlo's moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 1972 to assume principal positions in the Jacksonville Symphony, Ali on viola. During the summers, Ali and Gene taught at a music camp in the Berkshires. Three years later they both won principal positions in the Charlotte Symphony, where they have been since 1975. During her years in Charlotte, Ali has performed in numerous chamber music concerts, performed at many local churches and taught hundreds of violin and viola students. She and Gene play together in their ensemble, Viva Klezmer! which specializes in Jewish music and which has won critical acclaim for its many performances throughout the Southeast.

Ali and Gene have two children. Peter is a writer and lives in Los Angeles and Ilana aspires to open her own craft boutique and lives in Brooklyn. When time permits, Ali enjoys gardening, reading, walking, hiking and all manner of crafting.

Visit us at www.vivaklezmer.com

David Mills

Principal Tubist David Mills joined the Charlotte Symphony in 1977 and became the Orchestra’s Principal Librarian in 1993. A native of Albemarle, N.C., he received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Miami, Florida and did further studies at UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Miami, Manhattan Conservatory, and the Institute of Advanced Musical Study in Montreux, Switzerland. His teachers included Constance Weldon, Toby Hanks, Joe Novotny, Abe Torchinsky, Paul Krzywicki, Mel Culbertson, Robert Tucci, Denis Wick, and Jean Douay. His library studies were with Alexander Broude.

In addition to his primary roles with the CSO, David has performed with the Orchestra as narrator on numerous occasions, most notably in the award-winning Mill Village Project. He and his wife, Stacey (a trumpet player and band director), have two sons – John David (who plays trumpet) and Tucker (who plays trombone) – and together the four of them perform at Covenant Presbyterian Church as the Mills Family Brass. David is also a member of the brass quintet, Brass Act.

David enjoys biking, swimming, bogie golf, and drinking coffee with the Jeremiah Coffee Club.

In recognition of David’s fine service to the CSO, he received the first-ever Sally Ann Hall Spirit of the Symphony Award in 2007, an annual award given to an “unsung hero” of the Charlotte Symphony. Just four days after the Sally Ann Hall Spirit of the Symphony Award ceremony on June 7, 2007, David travels to Aspen, Colorado, where he will serve as Librarian for the Festival Orchestra of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival.

Bette Roth

Principal Harpist Bette Roth was raised in Lees Summit, Missouri where she first studied music. She excelled on the harp and won a
position to study at the acclaimed Curtis institute in Philadelphia.

She was at Curtis when she took a six-week leave to tour with the North Carolina Symphony. It was then that she met her future husband, Wolfgang Roth, who was a member of the NC Symphony. After graduating from Curtis, Bette spent a year studying in the Netherlands on a Fulbright scholarship. During that year, Wolfgang had returned to Germany and at the end of the year the couple were married in his home country where they took up residence. In 1971, they came to Charlotte where Wolfgang was offered one of the first full-time positions with the Charlotte Symphony. Bette was offered a per service position as Principal Harpist of the CSO Chamber orchestra. In 1983 Bette became the full-time Principal Harpist of the Charlotte Symphony. In 1995 Bette began the Suzuki Harp Society in Charlotte, which has become very large and active. Her favorite work played with the CSO is Ravel's "Daphnes and Chloe"  and her hobbies include hiking/walking, sailing, reading, Bible study, teaching, sewing/crocheting and traveling.  The Roths have two children, Dieter and Carla and are the proud grandparents of Sebastian and Christian.

Wolfgang Roth

Principal Second Violinist Wolfgang Roth was one of the first full-time musicians hired by Jacques Brourman in 1971. Roth was the first full time musician hired in 1971 as concertmaster for the chamber orchestra. He was born in Immenstadt, Germany (Bavaria) and has retained his German citizenship.

Wolfgang earned his Masters degree at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Munich and has performed with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Bach Orchestra, the Graunke Symphony and the North Carolina Symphony. In 1971, Roth started a violin Suzuki program at the Community School of the Arts. He had a large private studio until the 1990s. He and his wife, Bette, have made two recordings of music for violin and harp and have spent many summers touring Germany performing duo recitals. 

Wolfgang says he enjoys playing everything except "real modern music" and his hobbies include studying theology, sailing (he sails his sailboat on Lake Wylie near  his home), snow skiing, hiking and traveling.