| Status: |  |
| Member Since: | January 8, 2006 |
| Last Visit: | September 22, 2023 |
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Scott Slapin
Scott Slapin is the composer of ten albums of Neo-Romantic music for strings and the soloist for several innovative viola recordings. His playing has received critical acclaim in Fanfare, Strad, Musical Opinion, Mundo Clásico, and the American Record Guide, and he has been profiled in the Journal of the American Viola Society, Strings Magazine, and radio programs worldwide. He teaches viola, violin, and composition on several continents via Skype.Scott has given countless recitals and premiered solo works in Carnegie's Weill Hall, at international viola congresses, and on many albums. He is the first person to have recorded the complete cycle of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas on viola, and he can be heard on soundtracks for film and TV playing solo Bach, some of his own compositions, and Paganini Caprices. (He's recorded all 24.) A former fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California, Scott has been commissioned by the Primrose International Viola Competition and the American Viola Society, where he was an artist in residence, and he served as a committee member, judge, and performer for the inaugural Maurice Gardner Composition Competition. His published works include more than a dozen unaccompanied character pieces for viola; thirty viola duos; chamber music for strings; music for viola choir; concertos; educational materials; a mass "for the dead violist"; and a two-viola, one-act opera about Cremonus, God of the Viola. Many can be heard on The Slapin Anthology recorded by the Slapin-Solomon Duo, the Wistaria String Quartet, the Penn State Viola Ensemble, and the American Viola Quartet. Scott's recital compositions have been performed by hundreds of violists internationally.
Scott (b. 1974, Newark, NJ) grew up in a family of string players and studied violin/viola with Barbara Barstow and Emanuel Vardi and composition with Richard Lane. At eighteen, he was one of the youngest graduates of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He was the on-stage violist for the Off-Broadway production of Orpheus In Love (about a viola-playing Orpheus), and he played regularly in the NYC-area Sutton Ensemble, the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops, and as principal violist with the Knoxville (Tenn.) Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. Scott and his wife Tanya Solomon met touring as the viola section of the Philadelphia Virtuosi, shared a stand in the full-time orchestras in São Paulo, Brazil and New Orleans, Louisiana (where they were tenured members), and taught viola in Massachusetts at Mount Holyoke and Amherst colleges, respectively. They performed together for more than twenty years as the award-winning Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo and currently teach worldwide via Skype. Scott has been performing his own music in recital for more than twenty-five years and plays a viola and violin by Hiroshi Iizuka.
For more information, visit scottslapin.com and violaduo.com.
"Slapin is a real viola virtuoso..." (American Record Guide)
“…great talent not only as a violist but as a composer” -Journal of the American Viola Society
“Slapin’s magnificient playing says ‘Bring it on!’” -Fanfare
“Scott Slapin is great! It's hard to imagine better performances.” -Ruggiero Ricci
“well-designed music…emotionally expressive and varied” -New Jersey Star Ledger
“The virtuosity and musicality of Scott Slapin’s performances…surely cannot be improved upon.” -Musical Opinion
“first rate viola virtuoso…” -Journal of the Canadian Viola Society
“instrumentista exceptional” -Mundo Clasico
“wonderful playing… sonorous and rich” -The New York Violist
“tonal and rhythmic command” -Strad Magazine
"...brilliantly written...real lyricism...heartfelt" -Fanfare
"If any contemporary violist continues to carry the torch of the composer-performer, it is Scott Slapin." (Journal of the American Viola Society)
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2021: Feb.
