Rohan de Saram

He learned both Western music and Kandyan traditional drumming in Sri Lanka early in life, and studied cello in Italy from age 11, and further in England and with Pablo Casals in Puerto Rico. He began an international career playing in London's Royal Festival Hall (1956) and Wigmore Hall (1959), and Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1960.
De Saram became fascinated with contemporary music in 1972, when he performed Nomos Alpha for solo cello by Iannis Xenakis. He joined the Arditti Quartet in 1977. Both as a soloist and with the quartet he performed world premieres and recorded new music; he collaborated with influential composers, beginning with Kodály, Poulenc and Shostakovich. Several of them composed music for him, such as Luciano Berio's Sequenza XIV.