Scott Slapin (born 1974) is an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and

violist The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the v ...

Career

Slapin has written more than sixty viola-centric chamber works and was commissioned to write the required piece for the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition. 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. 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. 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. 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. They won 'Best Chamber Performance of 2008' at the Tribute to the Classical Arts in New Orleans, and they have premiered and recorded duos by Gerald Busby,

Robert Cobert Robert Cobert (October 26, 1924 – February 19, 2020) was an American composer who worked in television and films. He is best known for his work with producer/director Dan Curtis, notably the scores for the 1966–71 ABC-TV gothic fiction soap ...

, Richard Lane, Rachel Matthews, Patrick Neher,

Frank Proto Frank Proto (born July 18, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American composer and bassist. He was a double bass student of Fred Zimmermann and David Walter. He is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in 1966 with a Master of Music. A self ...

and David Rimelis, among others. Slapin plays a viola built by Hiroshi Iizuka.

Recordings

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. Slapin was the first person to record the complete cycle of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas (originally for violin) on viola, a set which he rerecorded in 2006. 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 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, ...

. 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 Emanuel Vardi (21 April 1915 – 29 January 2011), an American violist, was considered to have been one of the great viola players of the 20th century. Early life Emanuel Vardi was born April 21, 1915, in Jerusalem. His mother, Anna Joffa Va ...

in 1965. 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 The ''Ride of the Valkyries'' () is the popular name of the prelude to the first scene of the third and last act of ''Die Walküre'', the second of the four epic music dramas that constitute the operatic cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (Englis ...

, Tchaikovsky's

1812 Overture ''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the ...

, Rossini's Overture to the

Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy '' ...

, as well as an unabridged version of all four movements of

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, also known as the ''Fate Symphony'' (), is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1804 and 1808. It is one of the best-known compositions in classical music and one of the most frequently pla ...

Education

Slapin graduated at the age of eighteen from the

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory A music school is an educational institution specialized in the study, training, and research of music. Such an institution can also be known as a school of music, music a ...

, where he studied with

., In memory of Vardi, he wrote 'Capricious', a viola trio which references several of Paganini's Caprices. Slapin's Nocturne is dedicated to his composition teacher and mentor Richard Lane and can be heard, along with Slapin's Elegy-Caprice, in the final scenes of the American docudrama Secret Life, Secret Death. Slapin performed his Trauermusik at the memorial concert for his first violin and viola teacher, Barbara Barstow.

References

External links

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Slapin-Solomon Viola DuoTanya Solomon's Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slapin, Scott American classical violists Living people 1974 births