Sitting there on the piano bench, Joan Roth is suddenly unable to resist. With the ribbon she wore as chief marshal of the 1986 Bristol Fourth of July Parade hanging framed on the wall just overhead, Ms. Roth breaks into a rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, her fingers finding the keys from memory. As she plays, the notes ring out perfectly, effortlessly, but no sooner has the patriotic melody filled the room does Ms. Roth stop, full of laughter.

“You should hear what I play for the Rotary Club,” she quipped.

Still young at 92, Ms. Roth has spent a lifetime bringing music to people from all over the East Bay. Now the Bristol native is being honored for her years of dedicated service with a musical tribute at the 2019 Cultural Night fundraising event, held at Linden Place on Friday, May 17.

A student at heart

After decades of teaching music and directing choruses, it is hard to imagine a time when Ms. Roth was a student herself. Born into a family of musicians and educators, however, it was inevitable that she and her sisters would begin taking lessons early on. Not that Ms. Roth minded; she had long been curious about the world of music, fascinated by the notes her father played sitting alone at the piano in their living room.

“When we were kids, we’d climb up and say, ‘Daddy, make a brook, Daddy, make it thunderstorm,’ and he’d do it on the piano, and we thought it was magical,” Ms. Roth remembered.

Once in school, her aunt, Theresa Donovan — then the town’s music director — pushed her into additionally learning the clarinet, but neither instrument would prove to be Ms. Roth’s true passion. More than anything, she loved to sing.

Despite her father’s warning — “your voice will leave you, but the piano won’t” — Ms. Roth pursued singing in private study, one of her teachers being Ethel Barrymore Colt. By the time she graduated from Colt Memorial High School, Ms. Roth knew she, too, wanted to become a music teacher.

While attending liturgical school one summer in Providence, Ms. Roth met teacher Dr. C Alexander Peloquin. At the time, Dr. Peloquin was just beginning to form a new chorus, and he invited Ms. Roth to audition. She spent the next 30 years singing professionally with what would become known as the internationally-renowned Peloquin Chorale, performing in the likes of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the Notre Dame in Paris.

“I learned more singing under Dr. Peloquin than I did all the courses that I took,” said Ms. Roth, “and I took a lot of courses for my master’s degree.”

A teacher by trade

At the same time she was traveling the globe with Peloquin, Ms. Roth was carving out her career in education. She got her first job teaching history in Bristol in 1948 (“my aunt had the music department pretty much all sewed up,” she said) before landing a part-time role in the music department in Little Compton in 1959.

For the next 26 years, Ms. Roth taught music the way her aunt had, from studying its different forms and instruments to that of the grand opera. Having students understand the history of the art was critical in building an appreciation for it.

She employed a similar tactic at Roger Williams University, where she took on the role of adjunct professor in their newly-developing music department in 1981 and founded their first chorus. It just so happened to be around the same time that another group of Ms. Roth’s was forming: the Bristol County Chorus. They were amateurs, some unable to even read music, but they were students who were eager to learn and happy to sing. While all were welcome to join the BCC, Ms. Roth still challenged her students. She was always impressed with the finals results, as were others; more than once, the choir completely filled all 800 seats of St. Mary’s Church.

“When I look at some of the things we did, I can’t believe we did them.”

Though she no longer directs choruses (having made a promise to herself to retire by 90), Ms. Roth remains active in the community, whether it is conducting tours at Linden Place (where she was taught by Ms. Barrymore Colt) or playing piano at the Rotary Club every Wednesday.

That longstanding commitment to making Bristol a more musical place inspired Fourth of July committee member Jeanne Linacre to revolve this year’s Cultural Night event around Ms. Roth.

“There’s nobody else in this town I wanted to honor,” Ms. Linacre said.

Beginning at 7 p.m. in the Linden Place ballroom, the event will feature performances from Rosalind Chua, Laska Meseck, percussionists, a barbershop quartet and the mansion vocal band. Tickets can be purchased for $20 at Paper, Packaging & Panache and include light refreshments.