Steve Rouse composer / arranger

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.