Education
DMA, Music Composition: 1987, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
MM, Music Composition: 1982, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
BM, Music Composition: 1977, University of South Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Additional studies include private conducting study with Massimo Pradella (Rome, Italy, 1988) and many brief private study experiences in conducting, improvisation, and arranging/scoring.
Teaching Experience
University of Louisville: Professor of Theory and Composition (since 1988)
Indiana University: Visiting Professor of Composition (full-time, Spring 1999)
University of Utah: Visiting Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition (1985-86)
University of Michigan: Teaching Fellow (1982-85)
Eastern Michigan University: Music Director for Dance Division (1979-82)
Selected Awards and Distinctions
Included in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Ninth Edition (2000)
Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome (1987-88)
Meet the Composer Residency (Louisville) (1995-98)
Hinrichsen Composition Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1995)
National Endowment for the Arts Composer Fellowship (individual, direct fellowship, 1990)
Ives Composition Fellowship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1985)
Kentucky Arts Council - Al Smith Artist Award (1990, 1996, and 2004)
Winner – National Symphony Orchestra chamber music commission competition (2012)
Mississippi Composer of the Year award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters (2009, 2013, 2019, and 2020)
Kentucky Music Teachers Association's Commissioned Composer of the Year (1993 and 2018)
Recipient of seven University of Louisville grants or awards, including the 1999 and 2005 President's Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activity and the 1992 President's Young Investigator Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship
Recordings
2017: “Steve Rouse, Morphic Resonance” solo chamber music CD – Ravello/Parma Records (rr7973)
2012: “Steve Rouse, Chamber Music” – solo chamber music CD – Centaur Records (CEN-3188)
2011: The Flying Boy – Brett Shuster, “Free Flying” - Albany Records (ASIN: B00631LTKA)
2010: Sonata for Cello and Piano – Paul York, “Cello Vision” - Centaur Records (CEN-3030)
2010: Clarinet in Song – Dallas Tidwell - Centaur Records (CEN-2989)
2005: Swing Low (arr.) – “Zion” - Ouchita Baptist College Wind Ensemble - Mark Custom Recording Service, Inc.
2002: Angel Fire (wind ensemble) - Washington Winds, Garwood Whaley, conducting
2000: Shadow Rounds (trumpet ensemble) - Michael Tunnell, “Passages” - Centaur Records (CEN-2586)
1998: Enigma (alto saxophone and string orchestra) - Michael Tracy and the Louisville Strings, Kim Lloyd conducting – University of Louisville CD
1998: Crop Circles (piano solo) - Thomas Hoppe - University of Louisville Composers CD
1998: I Do Want More (from the chamber opera, The Mousewife) - Edith Davis, soprano and Steve Rouse, narrator (with flute, cello, piano) - University of Louisville Composers CD
1997: Into the Light (orchestra) - Cincinnati Symphony, "Into the Light" - Telarc Records (CD-80462)
1996: The Avatar (trumpet and piano) and A Flying Leap! (seven trumpets) - Michael Tunnell, "Lumen" - Coronet Records (CD COR-401-5)
1995: More Light (trumpet and piano) - Michael Tunnell, "Mixed Doubles" - Coronet Records (CD COR-401-2)
1994: Enigma (trumpet and string orchestra) - Seattle Symphony, Schwarz, Silberschlag, "The American Trumpet" - Delos Records (DE-3187)
1993: The Avatar (trumpet and piano) - Ray Mase, "Trumpet in Our Time" - Summit Records (CDC 148)
Publishers
C.F. Peters Corp., Manhattan Beach Music, Lauren Keiser Music, Primal Press Music Publishing
Between 1988 and 1990 all works published by the American Composers Alliance.
Other Publication
In Theory Only
Miscellaneous Responsibilities - University of Louisville School of Music
Graduate Faculty member (since 1988)
Division Head, Theory and Composition (2013-2018 and 2002-06), Division Co-Chair (2001-2002)
Director of 20th Century Concert Series and New Music Festival (periodically since 1989)
Liaison to Louisville Orchestra for collaborative New Dimensions Concert Series (1990-92, 1994, 1996-98)
University Courses Taught (in order of frequency)
Composition (first-year students through Graduate Thesis Advising)
Composition Seminar
Orchestration I and II
Freshman Theory
Sophomore Theory
Form Analysis I and II
Graduate Theory Review
Counterpoint - 16th and 18th Century
Advanced Counterpoint - 16th and 18th Century (private study)
Keyboard improvisation for dance accompanists (through a collaborative grant between the University of
Louisville and the Jefferson County Public Schools)
Advanced Orchestration (private study)
Independent Study in Finale music notation software
Committee Responsibilities – University of Louisville School of Music
Dean's Advisory Committee (2002-04)
University Distinguished Scholars Committee (1995-98)
Faculty Committee (multiple three-year terms)
Personnel Committee (multiple three-year terms)
Faculty Grievance Committee (three-year term)
Faculty Senate (three-year term)
Graduate Committee of the School of Music (multiple three-year terms)
Library Committee (multiple three-year terms)
New Music Festival Committee (since 1998); program booklet editor, 1999 - regional publication award
Member and/or Chair – many faculty search committees
ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Meet the Composer Louisville Composer in Residence
• Worked with local government and social service agencies to create outreach opportunities.
• Worked with public school students, teachers, and administrators developing and implementing music outreach programs.
• Gave 113 presentations or workshops in the public schools (1995-98)
• Composed music for many levels of public school ensembles.
• Produced a professional CD for the River City Drum Corps, an African drumming ensemble of youth from inner city Louisville.
• Created the Young Composers program that taught music composition to over 600 public school students.
Music Director for the Dance Division of Eastern Michigan University
Duties included an emphasis on piano improvisation, primarily for modern dance classes, but also live improvisational "creative collaborations" with choreographers. Additional duties included extensive audio production for concerts, teaching music theory classes for dancers, and supervision of all audio-visual resources.
Producer and Principal Arranger for "Solid Sound," an Ann Arbor, Michigan, state-of-the-art recording studio servicing clients throughout the Detroit/Ann Arbor region (1981-85)
Regular professional activities included writing, arranging, conducting, contracting, producing/editing, and serving as session keyboardist for a wide range of recording sessions and projects, including the following styles and idioms: radio and television jingles, R and B, rock and roll, country, jazz, mainstream pop, children's music, ethnic music, and a variety of gospel styles and traditions, among others.
Co-founder and co-owner of a commercial music company specializing in music for the advertising industry (1984-85)
Active jazz and popular music pianist (1970-85, 1992-95)
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SHORT BIO
Winner of the 1987 Rome Prize, Steve Rouse holds among his awards a three-year Meet The Composer residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Composition Fellowship, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters 1995 Hinrichsen Prize and 1985 Ives Composition Prize, three Al Smith Artist Awards from the Kentucky Arts Council, numerous ASCAP awards, and the 1999 and 2005 Research and Creative Achievement Award from the University of Louisville. He is included in the new millennium edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, Ninth Edition (2000).
Rouse's works have been performed in England, Italy, Ecuador, the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and throughout the U.S., including performances by such ensembles as the United States Navy Band, the St. Louis Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, Parnassus, Composers, Inc., the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, and the League/ISCM. He has received commissions from, among others, the Louisville Orchestra, the League/ISCM, the Guayaquil, Ecuador Chamber Orchestra, the University of Michigan Contemporary Directions Ensemble for the 1984 National Organ Conference, and the Kentucky Music Teachers Association.
In addition to two solo CDs of chamber music, Rouse's Into the Light was recorded for Telarc Records by the Cincinnati Symphony, and his Enigma for Delos Records by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, with trumpet soloist Jeff Silberschlag. His trumpet sonata, The Avatar, as recorded by Ray Mase, is available on Summit Records, and More Light, The Avatar, Shadow Rounds, and A Flying Leap! have been recorded for the Coronet and Centaur labels by trumpeter Michael Tunnell. Steve Rouse is published by C. F. Peters, MMB Music, Manhattan Beach Music, and Primal Press.
Born in Moss Point, Mississippi, in 1953, Rouse began composing and improvising as a child, subsequently studying piano, bassoon, and saxophone. At thirteen he began four years as a bassoonist in the Gulf Coast Symphony and began performing with his first rhythm and blues group.
Steve Rouse received his M.M. and D.M.A. in composition from the University of Michigan. Between his M.M. and D.M.A. study, Rouse served for three years on a full-time staff position as Music Director and Accompanist for the Dance Department of Eastern Michigan University. He also started a successful jingle production company partnership in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area.
In 1988 he joined the faculty of the University of Louisville, having previously taught at the University of Utah and, as a Teaching Fellow, at the University of Michigan. In Spring 1999, Rouse was a full-time Visiting Professor of Composition at Indiana University Bloomington. He is currently Professor of Music Composition at the University of Louisville School of Music.
As Composer in Residence for the Meet the Composer Louisville Residency from 1995-1998, Rouse wrote music for many levels of public school music ensembles and worked extensively with students, teachers, and administrators to develop and implement musical outreach programs. The residency offered a unique opportunity to work closely with local government and social service agencies to create outreach possibilities surrounding musical creativity, such as the highly visible and successful Young Composers program.
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SELECTED REVIEWS
"...powerful statements whether he writes for orchestra or chamber ensembles, or other medium."
- The American Academy of Arts and Letters, in bestowing the 1995 Hinrichsen Award
"...a brilliant, original composer with superb craft and extraordinary spirit." - John Corigliano,
composer
"...an ingenious composer...Rouse is not one to waste notes...another of today's masterful orchestrators...(an) expert practitioner of the composing craft..." - Andrew Adler, Courier-Journal, Louisville
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about "Symphony 2"
"...this is an exciting piece. The first movement, Fanfare Polka, is full of rollicking carnival sounds and jazzy riffs. The second, Clouds in Slow Water, is, as the title implies, a reflective meditation, but one that billows downward to a blissful inverted peak of introspection. The final movement, Radiant Edge, is an intensely compressed gallop through sharp-edged textures. This ain't your great-great-great- grandad's approach to symphonic music; it's wild, wooly and raucous....great fun..." - Marty Rosen, Louisville Eccentric Observer
"...appealing in its strutting confidence, teasing and playful while emphasizing the sheen of a modern symphonic ensemble....The symphony's central movement boasts some very fine, restrained string writing. This section's title, Clouds in Slow Water, is indeed an apt allusion." - Andrew Adler, Courier- Journal, Louisville
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about "Into the Light"
"...intense and fiercely original...Of all the evening's music, Rouse's Into the Light had the strongest profile. It is a passionate, visionary work with an opening movement that is an explosion of anger and pain. This anguish is then resolved in a mood of acceptance and peace toward the end of a concluding second movement. Into the Light reveals a sure command of orchestral texture and approaches its ethereal conclusion with an impressively controlled dramatic power. The audience received it with pronounced enthusiasm, and the voice uttering the loudest shouts of approval was Corigliano's." - William Mootz, Louisville Courier-Journal
"...Rouse is a master of orchestration; Into the Light was impressive for its effective use of timbres and the ability to sustain dream-like ambiance." - Janelle Gelfand, The Cincinnati Enquirer
"...beautifully conceived...exciting music!" - Karel Husa, composer
"...an ethereal work drenched in silvery percussion and suggestive of a near-death experience, sets the tone for the new (Cincinnati Symphony) Telarc CD, as well as supplying the title.......dreamlike and ethereal. Droplets of iridescent color fall on slow-moving expanses of sound, creating a mystic spell." - Mary Ellyn Hutton, The Cincinnati Post
"It has mystery and an ethereal sound that draws one away from the mundane world." - Donald R. Vroon, American Record Guide
"...brilliantly colored and atmospheric..." - John Huxhold, St. Louis Post Dispatch ________________________
about Waiting for Daylight
"A work of horror, hope, powerfully rendered"
by Andrew Adler, The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky - April 5, 1997
Collisions of art and social realism are as old as humankind, but seldom do they produce a work of such emotional power as occurred last night at the University of Louisville School of Music.
The occasion was the premiere of Waiting for Daylight, a piece for soprano and orchestra by composer Steve Rouse and writer/poet Anne Shelby that confronts one of the most explosive issues of our time. It tells the story, in surges of horrific imagery, of a woman suffering under an abusive husband. Pushed beyond her limits one night, she takes a gun and shoots him dead.
If this sounds the stuff of yesterday's headlines, you're right. Rouse and Shelby drew from interviews with several Kentucky women who killed their abusers, acts which brought them prison sentences, and eventual pardons from former Gov. Brereton Jones.
Many of their experiences would seem too terrible to recast in a musical score, but composer and poet haven't shrunk back, not for an instant. They fashioned a 25-minute monodrama for soprano and orchestra, calculating in the bold effects it draws from various instrumental choirs, yet successful in getting their points across.
They occupy dangerous territory. Gunning down one's spouse, no matter how despicable, is not a solution everyone will approve. Even Rouse, whose sympathies sound unmistakable, cautions in a program note that he's not advocating wholesale taking up arms against abusive husbands.
In their treatment, however, the unnamed woman is left with no other apparent choice. As a pedal point rumbles ominously in the orchestra, we learn of her wrenching dilemma. "The first time, he hit me just once, but hard, to show me who was in charge."
Her despair multiplies, hurtling uncontrollably. "I grow numb, paralyzed, a climber trapped in snow." Every insult, whether physical or verbal, is echoed and elaborated on by the orchestra...
Rouse...accomplishes his ends with consummate skill. He has written subtler scores, but perhaps none as specifically crafted...it provokes as much as it evokes...
...Soprano Edith Davis...sang with terrifying honesty that compelled a listener's absolute attention...
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