Scott Slapin is a composer, violist, violinist, and private teacher based in South Hadley, Massachusetts. With his wife, violist Tanya Solomon, he has been concertizing as the award-winning Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo for more than twenty years. Scott's violacentric recital compositions have been performed by hundreds of musicians in concert halls throughout the world and at major competitions/workshops including the ARD, Primrose, and Tertis. Scott is the first person to have recorded the complete cycle of J.S. Bach's Sonatas and Partitas on viola and can be heard playing solo Bach, Paganini Caprices, and his own compositions on various soundtracks for film and TV. His solo viola playing has received critical acclaim in such publications as the American Record Guide, Fanfare, Mundo Clásico, Musical Opinion, and Strad.
Scott was born into a family of string players in 1974. At eighteen he was one of the youngest graduates of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He gave countless recitals, made dozens of premiere recordings, wrote for and soloed with orchestras, taught at academies and colleges, and was a fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California. Scott served as committee member, judge, and performer for the inaugural Maurice Gardner Composition Competition and has been commissioned by the Primrose International Viola Competition and the American Viola Society, where he has also been artist in residence. He was the solo violist for the New York City production of Orpheus In Love, a chamber opera about a viola-playing Orpheus, and gained orchestral experience playing in the main symphony orchestras in Cincinnati, New Orleans, and São Paulo, sharing a stand in the last two with Tanya. Scott has written more than sixty violacentric chamber works, which can be heard on nine albums recorded by the Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo, the Wistaria String Quartet, the Penn State Viola Ensemble, and the American Viola Quartet. With Tanya he has also made many popular string-duo arrangements. For more info., please visit scottslapin.com and violaduo.com.
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