“If any contemporary violist continues to carry the torch of the composer-performer, it is Scott Slapin.”     
Journal of the American Viola Society

 

"Slapin is a real viola virtuoso..."  
American Record Guide 

  

“Scott Slapin is great! It's hard to imagine better performances.”  
20th Century Violin Virtuoso Ruggiero Ricci   
   

 “...brilliantly written... real lyricism... heartfelt’"  
Fanfare   

  

0:00 Bach Sonata No. 1 Fugue
0:39 Slapin South Hadley Mass (Adagio)
1:45 Lane Sonata No. 3 (Wind in the Trees)
2:30 Hindemith Sonata Op. 25, Nr. 1 (mvt 4)
3:02 Slapin Sonata in C for two violas (Andante)
4:10 Slapin Adventures in Ancestry (Part 1)
5:20 Slapin Intermezzo for two violas 

7:06 Paganini Caprice No. 3
7:50 Slapin Sonata in G for violin and viola (Allegretto)
8:31 Bach Partita No. 2 (Chaconne)
10:00 Kreisler Praeludium and Allegro
11:22 Slapin Lullaby
12:03 Paganini Caprice No. 10
12:35 Ernst The Last Rose of Summer

One of Scott's compositions

Scott with his Iizuka viola and violin and two paintings by William Sorrow

Scott with a painting by Emanuel Vardi

Click here to listen to the Slapin Anthology.

BIO

Scott Slapin is the composer of ten albums of Neo-Romantic music for viola and the soloist for several innovative viola recordings. His solo playing has received critical acclaim in Fanfare, Strad, Musical Opinion, Mundo Clásico, and the American Record Guide, and he has been profiled in the Journal of the American Viola Society, Strings Magazine, and radio programs worldwide. He teaches viola, violin, and composition on several continents via Skype.

Scott (b. 1974, Newark, NJ) grew up in a family of string players and studied violin/viola with Barbara Barstow and Emanuel Vardi and composition with Richard Lane. At eighteen he was one of the youngest graduates of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He gave countless recitals, served as a fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California, played in symphony orchestras from Cincinnati to São Paulo, taught at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and was the on-stage violist for the Off-Broadway run of Gerald Busby's Orpheus In Love--- a chamber opera about a viola-playing Orpheus.

Scott has premiered solo works for viola in Carnegie's Weill Hall, at international viola congresses, and on many albums, and he is the first person to have recorded the complete cycle of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas on viola. He can be heard on soundtracks for film and TV playing solo Bach, some of his own compositions, and Paganini Caprices. (He's recorded all 24.) He has been commissioned by the Primrose International Viola Competition and the American Viola Society, where he was an artist in residence, and he served as a committee member, judge, and performer for the inaugural Maurice Gardner Composition Competition. Scott has written for, soloed with, and played in ensembles of all sizes, and his recital works have been performed by hundreds of violists internationally.

Scott and his wife Tanya Solomon performed together as a viola duo for more than two decades and can be heard on many albums including The Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo: A Twenty-Year Retrospective and The Slapin Anthology, which presents many of Scott's compositions for strings with additional performances by the Wistaria String Quartet, the Penn State Viola Ensemble, and the American Viola Quartet. Scott and Tanya won 'Best Chamber Performance of 2008' at New Orleans' Big Easy Entertainment Awards and currently teach viola and violin privately worldwide via Skype from their home studio north of Burlington, Vermont.

Scott has been teaching and giving recitals since the 1990s. He plays a viola and violin (pictured below) by Hiroshi Iizuka.

 

Listen to some of Scott's compositions (grouped by instrumentation) at YouTube: