The Bowed Piano Ensemble
Stephen Scott, Composer & Director
CC's internationally recognized Bowed Piano Ensemble is an elite group of ten student, faculty and staff musicians exploring the leading edge of performance with sounds made directly on the strings of a grand piano which result in an orchestral array of tone colors, harmonies and rhythms.
The group has made several national and overseas tours, most recently to the Canary Islands in October, along with CC's Victoria Hansen (Principal Instructor of Voice), to present the closing concert of the Festival de Musica Visual on the island of Lanzarote. Their March, 2002 tour took them to the MaerzMusik Festival (Berlin) and the ppIANISSIMO Festival (Sofia, Bulgaria), as well as to Prague, Wolfsburg and St. Louis. On September 11, 2002 the Ensemble was featured on National Public Radio's "Sonic Memorial Project" commemorating the people and neighborhoods of the World Trade Center, where they had performed shortly before the destruction of September 11, 2001. Their Spring, 2003 tour takes them to the prestigious Other Minds 9 Festival in San Francisco.
| Listen to: "Sun Catcher" from Vikings of the Sunrise 2.5 MB mp3 clip © 1996 New Albion Records |
View a video clip from Entrada: The Bowed Piano Ensemble 0.5 MB Quicktime movie © 2000 Adigital Music BMI |
The Ensemble's 1996 recording of Scott’s Vikings of the Sunrise for New Albion Records has been the subject of several other recent programs on National Public Radio, including “All Things Considered,” “Weekend Edition,” and “Art Beat.” Vikings of the Sunrise was hailed by Billboard Magazine as “...the first truly provocative work of new music for the ‘90s,” and by Keyboard Magazine as “...vividly evocative.” Tom Manoff of “All Things Considered” called the work “...brilliant...if you can sail these mythic waters, you’re in for quite a journey.” The Ensemble’s most recent recording is a compact disk re-issue of Scott’s post-minimalist classic New Music for Bowed Piano, favorably reviewed by The American Record Guide (“...intensely resourceful music”), Wired Magazine and other publications.
Two major campus concerts and national/international touring.
By audition only.
Contact: Stephen Scott - Packard 111; ext. 6557,
sscott@ColoradoCollege.edu