Bowed Piano Ensemble Reinvents Piano Sound, Defies Expectation

"Playing the piano" achieves new meaning as the

University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM)

presents composer

Stephen Scott and the Bowed Piano Ensemble

on

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006

. The performance, part of CCM's Visiting Composers Series, takes place at 8 p.m. at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), Sixth and Walnut Streets, Downtown Cincinnati.

Founded by Scott at Colorado College in 1977, the Bowed Piano Ensemble explores the leading edge of instrumental performance with sounds made directly on the strings of a grand piano, resulting in an orchestral array of tone colors, harmonies and rhythms. Composed of ten musicians, the ensemble has performed live and in broadcast throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

A video clip can be found on the Bowed Piano Ensemble Web site: http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/dept/MU/bowedpiano.html.

For this event, the ensemble performs two of Scott's compositions: The Deep Spaces, featuring soprano soloist Victoria Hansen, and a new instrumental work for bowed piano ensemble alone, New York Drones.

Michael Fiday, assistant professor of composition at CCM and coordinator of the Visiting Composers Series, explains that the motivation for the event is to "get listeners to experience music as they may not have experienced it before -- to expose them to something they don't exactly hear or see every day in a typical concert environment." Continues Fiday, "The Bowed Piano Ensemble's sound needs to be heard -- and seen -- to be believed!"

Ticket and Parking Information
Tickets are $15 for general admission, $7 for non-UC students, and free for UC students with an ID. To order or for additional information, please contact the Contemporary Arts Center at 513-345-8405. Concertgoers can park downtown for a flat rate of $5 at the URS Garage on Seventh Street between Vine and Walnut Streets. (Please bring your parking ticket into CAC for validation.)

About the Bowed Piano Ensemble
Colorado College's internationally recognized Bowed Piano Ensemble is an elite group of ten student, faculty and staff musicians making waves on the contemporary music scene by performing directly on the strings of the piano. The ensemble produces sound by using long strands of horse hair that are woven between the strings or shorter strands that are glued to popsicle sticks and used more like a conventional bow. The Bowed Piano Ensemble has performed on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Art Beat and Weekend Edition, as well as NPR's "Sonic Memorial Project," commemorating the people and neighborhoods of the World Trade Center, where they had performed shortly before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. The ensemble has several recordings to their credit, including Vikings of the Sunrise and New Music for Bowed Piano.

About Stephen Scott
A professor of composition and jazz at Colorado College, Stephen Scott has also served on the faculty of Evergreen State College and as a visiting composer at Eastman School of Music, Aspen Music School, New England Conservatory, Princeton University, University of Southern California and at festivals and conservatories around the world. The winner of a New England Conservatory/Rockefeller Foundation Chamber Music Prize, Scott has also received a Barlow Endowment Commission, a grant from the Peter S. Reed Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Composer's Fellowship. Segments of Scott's Vikings of the Sunrise were used in a recent NBC prime-time special, and his composition The Tears of Niobe represented the United States at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1991.

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University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
STEPHEN SCOTT AND THE BOWED PIANO ENSEMBLE

Description:  
The internationally recognized Bowed Piano Ensemble explores all of the piano's possibilities by creating sounds directly on the strings of a grand piano, resulting in an orchestral array of tone colors, harmonies and rhythms. They perform works by contemporary composer (and ensemble founder) Stephen Scott: The Deep Spaces and New York Drones.

Date & Time:
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006 ~ 8 p.m.

Location:     
Contemporary Arts Center, Sixth and Walnut Streets, Downtown Cincinnati

Tickets:
$15 general admission, $7 non-UC students, Free for UC students with an ID
To order or for additional information, please contact the Contemporary Arts Center at (513) 345-8405.

Parking:
Concertgoers can park downtown for a flat rate of $5 at the URS Garage on Seventh Street between Vine and Walnut Streets. (Please bring your parking ticket into CAC for validation.)

Visit www.ccm.uc.edu for more information and a schedule of events.