Victoria Hansen rehearsing the American premiere of Stephen Scott's Paisajes Audibles at Other Minds 9.
Photo © 2003 Charles Amirkhanian.
...and excerpted from http://www.meetthecomposer.org/programs/comm2002awards.html:
Stephen Scott; Colorado Springs, CO
STEPHEN SCOTT will compose a new 60-minute work for soprano and The Bowed Piano Ensemble of ten musicians. The commission will expose the ground-breaking work of this under-recognized composer and inventor who maintains total command of his medium: bowed piano ensemble music, in which the musicians thread nylon fishing lines through the strings of two grand pianos and pull them back and forth to resonate the strings, all without pressing a single key. For his composition of Paisajes Audibles/Sounding Landscapes, Mr. Scott will collaborate with the painter/photographer Ildefonso Aguilar, taking as his point of departure various landscapes, both physical and imagined, natural and cultural, of Lanzarote, the eastern-most of the Canary Islands. The work will be written for soprano Victoria Hansen and the 10-member Bowed Piano Ensemble. This work will be premiered at the 9th Other Minds Festival in March 2003.
Commissioning Party: Other Minds; San Francisco, CA
Originally incorporated in 1983 as the California College of Performing Arts, Other Minds was substantially reorganized in 1993, with new leadership and programming. Other Minds is dedicated to the encouragement and propagation of contemporary music in all its forms through concerts, workshops, and conferences that bring together artists and audiences of diverse traditions, generations, and cultural backgrounds. By fostering cross-cultural exchange and creative dialogue, and by encouraging exploration of areas in new music seldom touched upon by mainstream institutions, Other Minds is committed to expanding and reshaping the definition of what constitutes "serious music."