Room 1078
chamber music & a smashin' good time
Room 1078
We love new music; we love old music; we love folk music; we love improvised music—but most of all, we love MAKING music.
Room 1078’s mission is to support the 21st-century evolution of performance as classical musicians, using innovative takes on contemporary repertoire, improvisation, and folk music to break down barriers between musicians and audience members. For Room 1078, connecting with listeners is as critical a part of music-making as the playing itself, and the quartet are constantly exploring ways to engage listeners with passion, energy, and precision in live performance. Its members include violinists Bram Margoles and Cassidy Chey Goldblatt, violist Ryan McDonald, and cellist Hanna Rumora.
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Founded at the University of Michigan in 2015, Room 1078 began its journey with the desire to promote the music of student composers, with its debut album By the Skin of Our Teeth (2017) comprising music entirely composed by UM alumnus Nathan Thatcher. The quartet have since incorporated their love of improvisation, experimentation, and folk music to craft intimate, electrifying sets for mixed audiences across the US. Over the past 10 years, they've brought electronics, contemporary classical works, standard repertoire, folk music, and their own compositions to the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, the YInMn Project, the Fivesparks Music Festival, Ann Arbor’s Third Place Concert Series, and a range of venues from construction zones and meaderies to living rooms and concert halls. Room 1078's most recent season brought them to the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Chamber Music @ AEIVA series, where they shared space with writers, composers, and visual artists.
Stay tuned for upcoming projects!
Bram Margoles
violin
Violinist Bram Margoles has been a member of the Alabama Symphony’s first violin section since 2021. Bram is also currently a member of the Des Moines Metro Opera Orchestra, and has appeared as a substitute player in the Nashville Symphony and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. Bram’s passion for orchestral performance started when they joined the Ann Arbor Symphony in 2015 while studying as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. At Michigan, Bram earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in Violin Performance, studying solo and orchestral repertoire with teachers Aaron Berofsky and David Halen. They also performed as a member of the Lansing, Flint, and Jackson Symphonies. Internationally, they had the chance to perform at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Germany. In 2019, after deciding to further pursue orchestral playing, Bram became a fellow and a co-concertmaster in The Orchestra Now in New York, and performed at venues including Carnegie Hall and Jazz at Lincoln Center. In addition to being passionate about orchestra, Bram is an enthusiastic chamber musician, and an advocate for contemporary classical and improvised music. In 2016 they co-founded the genre-defying string quartet Room 1078, which specializes in these areas. Branching out from their mainly classical training to other genres, Bram has enjoyed performing and recording alongside various songwriters and folk musicians. Bram fell in love with playing the violin at age six while growing up in Boulder, Colorado. When not playing music, they enjoy hiking, biking, and trying out new cooking projects at home.
Cassidy Chey Goldblatt
violin
An artist, educator, and visionary, Cassidy is passionate about people across the globe and about the interests and curiosities we all share. She's always seen the arts as a tool for building connection and has firmly incorporated this into her work as a performer and leader.
Cassidy is a New Music USA grant recipient, an Alaura Scholar, an Angell Scholar, and a former Garth Newel Emerging Artist Fellow. A founding member of Room 1078, Cassidy also founded the YInMn Project, an Atlanta-based and Ann Arbor-based new music festival; co-founded the University of Michigan's Converge Quartet; developed a "story-song" concept in collaboration with guzheng player Muqi Li; and has performed and recorded in a range of settings from orchestras, quartets, and singer-songwriter duos to Middle Eastern Fusion and funk ensembles. Cassidy completed her M.M. at the Boston Conservatory under Markus Placci and her B.M. in Violin Performance and Historical Musicology at the University of Michigan under David Halen and Aaron Berofsky.
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Today, Cassidy supports the growth of the world's next generation of leaders, inventors, and future arts appreciators via her work with Crimson Education, building education systems at a global scale. More than ever, she values collaboration and empowering people to connect, create, and inspire; she's also become an active advocate for the value of a performing arts education in a business context. Beyond professional life, Cassidy loves laughing, fake-opera-singing, and dancing in the clouds.
Hanna Rumora
cello
Cellist Hanna Rumora has established her reputation as a versatile artist who approaches old and new works with commitment and curiosity. Hanna has performed with Eighth Blackbird and members of the Silk Road Ensemble, as well as recording alongside the JACK Quartet. As a cross-genre artist, Hanna has performed with varied artists from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Michael Bublé and a Beatles Tribute band. She is a founding member of Room 1078, a string quartet whose daring programming ranges from contemporary classical premieres to arrangements of renaissance folk music to through-composed, narrated story-songs by the ensemble. You can hear her play on the Grammy-nominated album Sila: The Breath of the World, as well as Room 1078’s debut album, By the Skin of Our Teeth, or on Fever’s Candlelight Concert Series throughout the Midwest. Hanna will join the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music for their 2024 season, after taking part in the Des Moines Metro Opera’s 2024 production of Salome. Hanna is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Iowa. Her favorite activities outside of playing the cello include petting her three cats, stargazing, and playing the banjo.
Ryan McDonald
viola
When Ryan journeyed up to the University of Michigan from his home state of Georgia, he was on a mission: to become a better violist. And a better violist he became! (he thinks) But more than just learning to play the “big fiddle”, he ended up doing some other pretty cool things.
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A classical violist, Ryan loves creating music alongside other people. He has played with the Athens Symphony Orchestra, the ARCO Chamber Orchestra, the Midland Symphony Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Camerata, the Toccoa Symphony Orchestra, and the Brevard Music Center Orchestra. While new music is at the forefront of his chamber music work, Ryan has had plenty of experience with the golden oldies of chamber music through school, summer festivals, and (his favorite) late-night sight-reading parties with friends.
Outside of music, Ryan follows the competitive scene for Super Smash Bros. Melee, where he eagerly awaits the return of the legend PPMD. Ryan loves to read books, whether they be high fantasy, historical fiction, or philosophical discussion. Ryan also enjoys cooking, and it is his dream to own a badass kitchen with all the bells and whistles. His favorite food is, without question, southern barbeque.