Esther Roestan is a member of the Violin I section of the North Carolina Symphony, a position she assumed in the 2025/26 season. Prior to this, she served as Assistant Concertmaster of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra during the 2024/25 season, after performing in the first violin section from 2022 to 2024.
Roestan made her solo debut at the age of nine with the Surabaya Symphony Orchestra and later became the youngest-ever assistant concertmaster of the Indonesian Gita Bahana Nusantara Orchestra, the national orchestra of Indonesia. She earned a full scholarship at age 14 to the Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege Division and went on to study violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory, and The Orchestra Now. Her mentors have included renowned musicians such as Sibbi Bernhardsson, Addie MS, and Leon Botstein.
She has held concertmaster and principal roles with leading ensembles including The Orchestra Now, Music Academy of the West, and the Oberlin Conservatory Chamber Orchestra. Roestan also served as principal second violin in the West Coast premiere of Cold Mountain, winner of the 2016 International Opera Award and the first opera by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon.
As a dedicated chamber musician, Roestan has performed in a wide range of ensemble settings and collaborated with distinguished faculty and performers across the U.S. She was a member of the Kuttner Quartet at Indiana University, the school’s premier student string quartet, and a 2023 Fellow at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, where she performed both orchestral and chamber works as part of the festival’s intensive summer residency program.
Originally from Indonesia, Roestan studied at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory, where her principal teachers were Grigory Kalinovsky and Sibbi Bernhardsson. She lives in the Raleigh area with her husband Jonathan and their two beloved cats, Thomas and Forrest.
