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Bradley Sowash

Bradley Sowash is a composer, creative pianist, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, author, and educator specializing in improvisation.

About Me

Highlights Creative piano concert artist. Recording artist of nine albums. Co-Founder of 88 Creative Keys Workshops & Webinars. Pioneered live online group jazz piano lessons. In-demand presenter at regional and national music education conferences. Author of two widely-acclaimed piano instructional series, That’s Jazz and Creative Chords. Past Pop/Jazz Chairperson for Music Teachers National Association. Broadcast credits include seven seasons on the PBS-TV series, “The Piano Guy.” Columnist for Clavier Companion, Downbeat, American Music Teacher among others Faculty: Suzuki Music Columbus, Chamber Music Connection, and The Jazz Academy Winner of a special citation from the American Prize in Composition for “his unique skill in combining classical techniques with popular idioms.”

Bio Bradley Sowash is known for his innovative online group jazz piano lessons, as the co-founder with Leila Viss of 88 Creative Keys online clinics and workshops, and as the author of popular keyboard improvisation books published by Kjos Music.

As a performer, he has performed in every imaginable setting from living rooms, churches and jazz clubs to major concert venues both here and abroad for over thirty years. His broadcast credits include seven seasons of appearances on the PBS-TV series, The Piano Guy, and National Public Radio has aired selections from his nine CDs.

As an educator, he pioneered live online group jazz piano lessons., co-founded 88 Creative Keys workshops & webinars with Leila Viss and is a frequent presenter at national music conferences. The Neil A. Kjos Music Company publishes his widely-acclaimed keyboard improvisation books and Augsburg Fortress Press has published several volumes of his hymn arrangements. He also writes a column about improvisation for Clavier Companion and self-published works for ballet, big band, choir, film, orchestra, solo piano and string quartet.

Background

After earning his degree in music composition at The Ohio State University, Sowash moved to New York City where he worked with many modern dance luminaries including Mark Morris, Meredith Monk, and Susan Hadley with whom he collaborated for 10 years. Later, while living abroad, Sowash refined his mainstream jazz piano technique before appreciative audiences in several countries while exploring the roots of concert performance, Alpine skiing, and his French heritage. Upon reaching what he affectionately calls the “dogs and horses phase of life,” Sowash returned to his native Ohio to raise a family “in the warm embrace of the Midwest” and develop his unique piano style which, while influenced by jazz, remains distinctly his own.

Educator

A renowned jazz educator, Sowash is the author of That's Jazz, a nine-volume jazz piano method and the Creative Chords keyboard improvisation series published by the Neil A. Kjos Music Company. He frequently offers teacher training workshops for piano teachers in conjunction with that series. He is a faculty member at Suzuki Music Columbus and Chamber Music Connection. He also teaches adults pianists all over the world through an online group jazz piano lessons format that he pioneered. Past educational positions include The Ohio State University Department of Dance and New York City High School of the Performing Arts, which is featured in the movie, Fame.

Service to the field Sowash regularly appears as a guest speaker and arts consultant offering professional development workshops for fellow artists and teachers. He has also served as the Pop/Jazz Chairperson for Music Teachers National Association, and as a panelist and board member, to several art organizations including Jazz Master Awards, several state art councils and Worthington Arts Council in his hometown.

Concerts Roaming somewhere on the musical spectrum between Ellington’s playfulness and Beethoven’s romanticism, Sowash’s music has been described as ‘contemporary jazz with classical stylings’. Every Sowash concert contains a few familiar standards, yet he is most recognized for his innate gift for instilling feelings that words leave untouched into his original compositions. Sowash’s commentaries, which reflect his vast and varied experience as a parent, modern dance collaborator, teacher, church musician, sailor, horseman, outdoor enthusiast, and world traveler, are an integral part of every performance and make his warm, poetic melodies even more accessible to casual listeners. In addition to his concert hall performances, Sowash performs jazz worship services and sacred concerts in churches nationwide.

Recordings

Though the concert experience is vital to Sowash’s artistry, he has recorded nine critically acclaimed CDs. While on a hiking and fly fishing trip in 1993, Sowash was deeply inspired by the magnitude and variety of American landforms. This experience led to his first recording, Out West, which received favorable reviews in national publications. The sweet experience of raising his two daughters, tempered by the knowledge that they would grow up so fast, inspired his second release, Bittersweet, in 1996. The love of intense outdoor activities that inspired his third album, In the Moment, also caused Sowash to postpone touring following its release when he broke his arm in a fall from an untrained horse. New Age Retailer declared it, “One of the best solo piano albums of 1999.” The 2002 release of We Gather Together, which features hymns and spirituals, prompted Solo Piano Publications to declare Sowash, “simply one of the best pianists on the contemporary scene.” Augsburg Fortress Press has published a two-volume set of accompanying sheet music. Outstanding worldwide sales prompted the follow-up release of more jazz hymns arrangements with When Saints Go Marching and For the Beauty of the Earth in 2004, which is also available in sheet music form. Sacred Jazz and Spirituals (2005) documents a live concert with his jazz quintet and a 45-voice choir. Whodunit? features selections from his original score to the mystery ballet of the same name which premiered on March 8, 2007, in a production by BalletMet, with choreography by Susan Hadley. Fum Bells is his most recent project, Christmas classics arranged with unusual stylistic twists for large jazz ensemble and choir.

Awards and honors The American Prize in Composition named Sowash a 2012 semi-finalist in the Orchestra Professional Division and a 2013 special citation recognizing his “Unique Skill in Combining Classical Techniques with Popular Idioms.” He also became an associate editor for Clavier Companion that year. In 1999, he was the featured artist at the Arts Midwest 15-state regional conference in Cleveland, OH. He is listed in John Shaefer’s book, New Sounds: A Listener’s Guide to New Music and in Katherine Teck’s Movement to Music. Sowash has received numerous grants from Ohio Arts Council as well as from New York State Council of the Arts, Hazelbaker Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts.

“I have always known I would be a musician. As a child, I could not distinguish between the terms ‘musician’ and ‘magician.’ Not only did they sound alike, but seemed to me to function the same way by bringing people to their sense of awe. Music, for me, is a language that addresses the emotional places we have in common but seldom discuss.”

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