Open_Music/ScottRoller

Open_Music e.V. Stuttgart is a public-service cultural non-profit organization in Stuttgart, Germany. Scott Roller is Cellist, Composer, Improviser, Educator - and founding director of Open_Music since 2005.

Born in Amarillo, Texas USA in August 1959. Raised there and in Urbana, Illinois, with some summers in Michigan at the National Music Camp Interlochen. Parents both musicians/educators, along with two Roller uncles, some rather prominent.

University studies in cello, composition & much more: UT Austin (76-79), Paris (79-80), North Texas State Univ. Denton (80-81). Chamber Music America Residency in Dallas with the BL Lacerta improvisation quartet (81-83), who were important in his improvisational development (his “Master’s degree in Free Improvisation).

German resident since June 1983, first in Stuttgart (83-84), then in Essen (1984-2009), though the original Stuttgart connections and location continued to play an important role throughout much of that time, especially since the late 90s. Cellist in the Dortmund Philharmonic (86-90) and thereafter as a free-lancer with many orchestras, chamber and studio ensembles in the Ruhr Region, Cologne and Düsseldorf. Collaborations with the organist/composer Gary Verkade, including in their electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble Synthese (89-94).

In 1992, founded the Wolpe Trio with Lesley Olson (flute) and Susanne Achilles (piano), with whom he was very active for a decade. Many commissions, collaborations, concerts and recordings with prominent contemporary composers such as James Tenney, Kaija Saariaho, Helmut Lachenmann, N.A. Huber (with whom he also studied composition), Sandeep Bhagwati, and many of the younger German and American generations.

Extensive collaborations with composer-performers Mike Svoboda, Scott Fields, Michael Rießler, and in ensembles like Musikfabrik NRW (in Düsseldorf, though they are now in Cologne) and Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt). Early work with dancers Dyane Neiman, Robert Solomon and especially later with Christine Brunel, with whom he created several large-scale duo productions between 2002-13.

In the past decade, he has worked musically, educationally and even dramatically in several large projects with the Stuttgart choreograph Nina Kurzeja, a continuing collaboration. In the context of Nina’s Alice in Iconland (2012), he also met and worked for the first time with Roderik Vanderstraeten, a Belgian musician, sound-designer, producer and other. Scott has been a member of Rod’s Harmonie59 – H59 collective since 2013, a musical production team for film, theater and other studio projects. Since 2019, they are especially active together in Open_Music projects, where Rod is Scott’s right-hand man, both artistically-musically and in administration.

In 2005, he founded (together with several Stuttgart colleagues) the non-profit organization Open_Music e.V. as a platform for musical improvisation and its application in educational work. Open_Music offers opportunities for instruction, creative encounters and productions involving people of almost all ages, social and cultural backgrounds – focused on music but open to all forms and persuasions of human expression. Open_Music is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2020, and since his regaining leadership of Open_Music in 2019 as CEO/business manager, the future looks exciting. More information at scottroller.de and openmusic.de

scott@scottroller.de | scott@openmusic.de