Scott Slapin (born 1974 [1] ) is an American composer [2] [3] and violist. [4] [5]
Scott Slapin (born 1974 [1] ) is an American composer [2] [3] and violist. [4] [5]
Slapin has written more than sixty viola-centric chamber works [6] [7] and was commissioned to write the required piece for the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition. [3] He served on the committee for the first Maurice Gardner Composition Competition and co-premiered the winning work, Rachel Matthews' Dreams, at the 38th International Viola Congress. [8] At the age of eighteen he was performing daily as the solo violist in the New York City production of Gerald Busby's Orpheus In Love, a chamber opera about Orpheus recast as a viola player. [9] He was subsequently invited to premiere Busby's Muse for Solo Viola in Carnegie's Weill Hall, and he gave countless solo recitals and performed with ensembles throughout the United States and South America. Slapin has written extensively for the Penn State Viola Ensemble and the Wistaria String Quartet, and he is a former fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California. [10] He can be heard playing solo Bach, Paganini Caprices, and his own compositions on various soundtracks for film and TV. Slapin performs and records with his wife, Tanya Solomon, also a violist. [11] They won 'Best Chamber Performance of 2008' at the Tribute to the Classical Arts in New Orleans, [12] and they have premiered and recorded duos by Gerald Busby, Robert Cobert, Richard Lane, Rachel Matthews, Patrick Neher, Frank Proto and David Rimelis, among others. Slapin plays a viola built by Hiroshi Iizuka. [13]
To date, there have been ten recordings of Slapin's chamber music made by the Wistaria String Quartet, the Penn State Viola Ensemble, the American Viola Quartet, and the Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo. [14] Slapin was the first person to record the complete cycle of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas (originally for violin) on viola, [15] a set which he rerecorded in 2006. [13] He has premiered and recorded many 20th and 21st Century recital works featuring the viola, and he is the featured soloist on the first album produced by the American Viola Society. [16] His 2008 recording, Paganini's 24 Caprices, marked the first time Paganini's 24 Caprices had been recorded on a viola in standard tuning since Emanuel Vardi in 1965. [4] He also made the first set at YouTube of Ysaye's Six Solo Sonatas on viola. After more than a decade of performing together as members of several orchestras, Slapin and Solomon transcribed for viola duo some of the symphonic repertoire's best-known works and in 2017 made an unprecedented two-viola recording of four of them: Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, [17] [18] Rossini's Overture to the Barber of Seville, as well as an unabridged version of all four movements of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
Slapin graduated at the age of eighteen from the Manhattan School of Music, [19] where he studied with Emanuel Vardi., [3] In memory of Vardi, he wrote 'Capricious', a viola trio which references several of Paganini's Caprices. [3] Slapin's Nocturne is dedicated to his composition teacher and mentor Richard Lane [20] and can be heard, along with Slapin's Elegy-Caprice, in the final scenes of the American docudrama Secret Life, Secret Death. [21] Slapin performed his Trauermusik at the memorial concert for his first violin and viola teacher, Barbara Barstow. [22]
The viola ( vee-OH-lə, Italian:[ˈvjɔːla,viˈɔːla]) is a string instrument that is usually bowed. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth higher) and the cello (which is tuned an octave lower). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4.
Peter-Lukas Graf is a Swiss flautist born in Zürich, Switzerland. He was a pupil of André Jaunet, and later attended the Paris Conservatoire, where he won first prize with Marcel Moyse and Roger Cortot. Besides playing the flute both in orchestras and as a soloist, he is a conductor, and spent several years exclusively as an orchestra and opera conductor. He is also a teacher, and has taught at the Basel Music Academy since 1973 and at the Music Academy Accademia Lorenzo Perosi in Biella. Graf played at James Galway's wedding in May 1972. In 2005 Graf received an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Music in Kraków.
James Ehnes, is Canadian concert violinist and violist.
A viola concerto is a concerto contrasting a viola with another body of musical instruments such as an orchestra or chamber music ensemble. Throughout music history, especially during the Baroque, Classical, Romantic eras, viola was viewed mostly as an ensemble instrument. Though there were a few notable concertos written for the instrument in this time period, these instances were quite rare and the instrument continued to be ignored. However, during the 20th century, the instrument was revitalized thanks to the work of a number of violists and composers, which led to the commission and composition of many more viola concertos, expanding the repertoire significantly.
The Paganini Quartet was an American string quartet founded by cellist Robert Maas and violinist Henri Temianka in 1946. The quartet drew its name from the fact that all four of its instruments, made by Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737), had once been owned by the great Italian violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini (1782–1840).
Michaela Paetsch Neftel was an American violinist who was born in Colorado Springs. She was known for being the first American female to have recorded all 24 Paganini Caprices for solo violin. She was first prize winner in the 1984 G. B. Dealey Awards and a top prize winner in the 1985 Queen Elisabeth Competition and a special prize winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition held in 1986.
Alina Rinatovna Ibragimova is a Russian-British violinist.
The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin were written in groups by Niccolò Paganini between 1802 and 1817. They are also designated as M.S. 25 in Maria Rosa Moretti's and Anna Sorrento's Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Niccolò Paganini which was published in 1982. The Caprices are in the form of études, with each number exploring different skills
Henri Temianka was a virtuoso violinist, conductor, author and music educator.
Emanuel Vardi, an American violist, was considered to have been one of the great viola players of the 20th century.
The American Viola Society (AVS) is an organization headquartered in Dallas, Texas that encourages excellence in performance, pedagogy, research, composition, and lutherie by fostering communication and friendship among violists of all skill levels, ages, nationalities, and backgrounds.
Matthew Jones is a British violist, violinist and composer primarily known for his international performance work as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He also holds a Viola Professorship and is Head of Chamber Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and runs an in-demand performance health consultancy practice. He is fluent in Italian.
Andreas Makris was a Greek-American composer and violinist, born in Kilkis, Greece, on March 7, 1930. He was a Composer-in-Residence for many years at the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, working with conductors such as Howard Mitchell, Mstislav Rostropovich, Antal Dorati, and Leonard Slatkin. He composed around 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, including the Aegean Festival Overture, which, transcribed for concert band by Major Albert Bader of the USAF Band, became a popular piece with US bands. Grants and awards he received include the Damroch Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Award, ASCAP Award, the Fulbright Scholarship, and citations from the Greek Government.
David Nadien was an American virtuoso violinist and violin teacher. He was the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic from 1966 to 1970. His playing style, characterized by fast vibrato, audible shifting noises, and superb bow control, has been compared to that of Jascha Heifetz, who is considered by some to be the greatest violinist of all time.
Pierre D'Archambeau born from Belgian parents, was an American violin virtuoso and pedagogue
Mela Tenenbaum, born in Ukraine, is a classical violinist and violist, also playing viola d'amore. She graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory and performed the Kyiv Philharmonic and other orchestras. She inspired composers such as Dmitri Klebanov to write pieces for her.
Samuel Lifschey was an American viola player.
Régis Pasquier is a French violinist from a family of musicians. His father Pierre Pasquier (1902–1986), a violist and his uncles Jean (1903), a violinist, and Étienne (1905–1997), a cellist, had founded a string trio, le Trio Pasquier. His brother Bruno Pasquier is a violist.
Pierre Lénert is a French violist. An international concertist, he is first solo violist of the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris.
Timothy Ridout is a British violist and 1st Prizewinner of the prestigious Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition.
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