SCOTT KIRBY
 
biography
discography
artist's world

appearances
quotes

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Pianist/composer Scott Kirby specializes in distinctly
American musical styles which include Classic Ragtime,
New Ragtime, Creole Music and Terra Verde

 

   

about Viridiana

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Viridiana Productions, LLC
P.O. Box 1616
Sandpoint, ID 83864

 







 

 

Biography


Pianist/composer Scott Kirby specializes in distinctly American musical styles which include Classic Ragtime, New Ragtime, Creole Music and Terra Verde. As a performer, he is also an educator, providing historical context and musical insight into the program as it unfolds. Whether on the concert stage or in the classroom, Kirby offers a musical experience which is both informative and intimate, educational yet highly personal.

Each presentation is unique and may include examples from North America, South America and the Caribbean, illuminating how a rich musical heritage evolved from a melange of ethnic music and "art music", from the aural and the composed traditions. Various composers include Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Scott Joplin, Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth, Jazz pioneer Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton and Ernesto Lecuona of Cuba. Concerts may also contain short pieces from Latin America and the French Caribbean such as the Haitian merengue, the biguine from Martinique, the Puerto Rican danza, the cumbia or the Cuban habanera. In addition, Kirby champions writers of New Ragtime and Terra Verde, contemporary counterparts to the more traditional styles. As a composer, Kirby combines the influence of nineteenth century romanticism with these New World idioms into his own individual, syncopated language.

A native of Ohio, Scott Kirby began his study of music at the age of six, and continued formal piano instruction for seventeen years. He worked under Robert Howat of Wittenberg University of Ohio, and Sylvia Zaremba at the Ohio State University. After obtaining an English degree from Ohio State University, Kirby moved to New Orleans and began his professional music career. In the following four years, he recorded the complete rags of Scott Joplin, and made his debut at all of the major ragtime festivals in the United States, as well as festivals in Belgium, France, Norway and Hungary.

Along with being Musical Director of the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, MO, and of the Rocky Mountain Ragtime and American Music Festival in Boulder, CO, Kirby divides his time between performance and composition, and is available for concert appearances, workshops, residencies and festivals.

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Discography


SOLO PROJECTS

Scott Joplin's Ragtime
The Complete Scott Joplin, Vol.1
The Complete Scott Joplin, Vol.2
The Complete Scott Joplin, Vol.3
The Complete Scott Joplin, Vol.4
More Damn Good Ragtime
Some Assembly Required
The Complete Rags of Scott Joplin, vol. 1 (New series in 3 volumes)
The Complete Rags of Scott Joplin, vol. 2
Grace & Beauty
On Lincoln Place
Ravenna
Centennial Sampler, vol.1


COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS

Terra Verde
Creole Music
Bucktown in the Nineties
Ragtime Primer
57 Kinds of Blues
Augie Jr. and the Big Mess Blues Band
Frontiers


SHEET MUSIC FOR SALE

Ravenna

Order now!

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Artist's World


www.ScottKirby.net
             


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes 

 

"... Critics call [Scott Kirby] one of the best interpreters of ragtime music on the scene today."
  -Charles Osgood, CBS News Sunday Morning, 1997

"Ace pianist"
  -Time Magazine, Michael Walsh, August, 1992

"In Scott Kirby's playing we encounter the very essence of ragtime. He is the embodiment of the Scott Joplin ideal.
  -Edward A. Berlin, author of The King Of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era

"Today's best player of Scott Joplin's Music"
  -Trebor Tichenor, Author of Rags and Ragtime, composer, pianist, collector and ragtime historian

     (On The Complete Scott Joplin, Vol.1)
"Kirby is sensitive without being self-indulgent. His technique is dear and eloquent while retaining an earthy, down-home quality"
  -CD Review, Linda Kohanov, December, 1990

"Kirby has recently distinguished himself as a Ragtime composer with few equals in the medium's history."
  -David Thomas Roberts, composer/pianist, Early Tangos to New Ragtime (Pianomania, 1995)

     (On Ravenna)
"...you will find here some of the most beautiful and intriguing music written today...there is a sense that these works are intensely personal and that he is sharing his musical feelings with the listener because words simply will not do."
  -The Top Liner Rag, Jack Rummel, January, 1997

     (On Terra Verde)
"...brilliantly performed. ..Kirby sounds like Chopin..."
  -The Denver Post, Jeff Bradley, April 1, 1997

"Something new and wonderful is happening on American pianos, with composer/pianist Scott Kirby of New Orleans in the vanguard. The classically-trained, street smart, charismatic Kirby is leading the way toward an irresistible new keyboard literature that has its roots in the past...and its eye on the present"
  -Max Morath, premier Ragtime performer, composer and educator


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Appearances      

 

Scott Kirby no longer performs in public.


Selected Past Appearances:

U.S.A. Smithsonian Associates
Washington, D.C.

Villa Montalvo
Saratoga, CA

CBS News Sunday Morning

French Embassy

Washington, D.C.

University of Missouri
Columbia, MO

Great American Brass Band Festival
Danville, KY

Denver Center for the Performing Arts
Denver, CO

International Souillac Jazz Festival
Souillac, France

Bohém Ragtime Festival
Kechkemet, Hungary

Sildajazz Festival
Haugesund, Norway

Festival de Lille
Lille, France

Tamines Jazz Festival
Tamines, Belgium

Château de Sédières Concert Series
Sédières, France

Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival
Sedalia, MO

Aquinas College
Grand Rapids, MI

Whitworth College
Spokane, WA

Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival
Boulder, CO

Lewis and Clark State College
Lewiston, ID

New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
New Orleans, LA

 

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Contact

do@viridianaproductions.com

Doe Verdier
P.O. Box 1616
Sandpoint, ID 83864

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