Scott Holden
Biography
Dr. Scott Holden is actively engaged as soloist, chamber musician and teacher. He holds music degrees from the University of Michigan, Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Horowitz Prize. In addition to his American studies, he also spent a year studying and performing in Budapest at the Liszt Academy where he was a Fulbright Scholar. His teachers have included Charles Fisher, Nina Lelchuk, Arthur Greene, Martin Canin, Ferenc Rados, and Arkady Aronov. Additional studies have been with Paul Badura-Skoda, Eugene Istomin, Leon Fleisher, and Byron Janis. Mr. Holden has performed in over thirty-five states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, England, Belgium, Holland, Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, and China. He released his first CD in 1996 which included works by Bach-Busoni, Schumann, Berg and Martinů. A second CD is to be released on Tantara records, which will include several premieres. This project stems from his lengthy and original research on the Russian-American composer Vernon Duke.
A prize winner in numerous piano competitions, his 1996 Carnegie Hall debut recital was a result of winning 1st prize in the 1996 Leschetizky International Piano Competition. It received high critical praise in the New York Concert Review: “Mr. Holden is a winner….right from the beginning, he shared some key elements with Leschetizky’s more famous students: beautiful tone, sound technique and the ability to transform notes on a page into a distinctly personal statement…He is a pianist in the ‘effortless technique category’ whose main concern seems to be in matters of interpretation, and who by all evidence, is ready to put his own stamp on the music.” Holden presented the world premiere William Wallace’s 2nd piano concerto with Keith Lockhart and the Utah Symphony. The Salt Lake Tribunewrote about his playing “We were torn between examining every new note passing before our ears, and witnessing Mr. Holden’s dazzling pianistic acrobatics. It was a wonderful dilemma.”
He has performed in Alice Tully Hall, and The Kennedy Center among other venues. Performances and recitals have been broadcast on NPR, NBC, the CBC, as well as numerous performances on local networks. He is frequently seen and heard on KBYU Radio and TV. As a teacher and clinician, he has given many masterclasses at festivals and pedagogy workshops, and has also taught courses at the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music. A long time resident of New York City, he and his family relocated to Utah in 2002 to accept a piano professorship at Brigham Young University. He is currently the director of keyboard studies at BYU.