about us
Track 1: Duo for two violas by Rolla
Track 2: Nocturne for two violas by Scott Slapin
The award-winning Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo has expanded the repertoire for two violas through numerous premieres, commissions, recordings, and their own pioneering transcriptions. Scott and Tanya have been featured at several international viola congresses and can be heard on The Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo: A Twenty-Year Retrospective, which draws from more than ten of their duo albums recorded over two decades. Their recordings for Violacentric Productions, Eroica Classical Recordings, ISG, Pioneer Valley Strings, and the American Viola Society have garnered critical acclaim in such publications as Strad, the New York Violist, the All Music Guide, and the Journals of the American and Canadian Viola Societies.
As one of the few long-term viola duos in the world, Scott and Tanya won 'Best Chamber Performance of 2008' at New Orleans' Tribute to the Classical Arts, and they can be heard performing Scott's popular Nocturne in the final scenes of the award-winning docudrama Secret Life, Secret Death. In addition to dozens of Scott's compositions, they have premiered and recorded duos by such diverse composers as Gerald Busby, Robert Cobert, Richard Lane, Rachel Matthews, Patrick Neher, Frank Proto, and David Rimelis; their debut CD 'Sketches from the New World' was hailed as "absolutely brilliant" in Strad Magazine. Scott and Tanya have taught at colleges and academies in the Northeast and have been members of various ensembles, sharing the stage with some of the great soloists of our time such as Itzhak Perlman, Leonidas Kavakos, Joshua Bell, Roberto Diaz, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lynn Harrell. Throughout, the viola duo remained their central focus, weaving in various musical influences from their travels.
Scott and Tanya currently maintain private viola and violin studios in their home studio north of Burlington, Vermont. They teach on several continents via Skype, and their students range in age from eight to eighty and in ability from beginners to advanced professionals.
