stallcop

Glenn Stallcop, an active and versatile composer, musician, and teacher, was born in 1950 in Vancouver, Wash., and grew up in Seattle. He received a bachelor’s of music degree from the University of Washington in 1976 and a master’s degree in music from Arizona State University in 1993, where he was awarded Outstanding Graduate in Music History, Theory, and Composition. His major teachers include Robert Suderberg, William Bergsma, and Chinary Ung for composition, Ring Warner and Steve Brewster for double bass, and Frits Scavenius for piano.

In 1973, Stallcop moved to Phoenix to take a position as double bassist with The Phoenix Symphony, a position he still holds. He was also appointed principal double bass in the Flagstaff Festival of the Arts summer orchestra in 1993, after serving as assistant principal since 1983.

As a professional double bassist with a major symphony orchestra, a significant amount of his creative effort has been spent on works which feature the double bass. He has written works for double bass and orchestra, for solo bass, bass with accompaniment, two sets of bass duets, and several chamber music works. He won the 2004 International Society of Bassists Composition Competition for solo double bass with his work entitled Vision Quest, for double bass and piano.

Several of Stallcop’s orchestra compositions have been performed by The Phoenix Symphony, including Sunscape in 1987, commissioned by the Arizona Diamond Jubilee Commission. His orchestra works have been performed by the Seattle Symphony, along with other professional, college, festival and youth orchestras.

Stallcop became seriously interested in chamber music in 1980. He presented annual concerts of his new compositions at the Kerr Cultural Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., from 1980-84. In 1983, he founded the Arizona Composers Forum and served as its president and executive director from 1983-89. During this period, ACF presented 46 concerts in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, a series of 12 lectures, and a weekly radio program featuring music of Arizona composers. He presented concerts of his own chamber music on this series annually from 1985-89.

At the keyboard, Stallcop has been active in classical music, jazz, free improvisation and the performance of his own music. After playing classical piano and rock-and-roll in his teens, he turned to improvisation in the 1970s. Since 1977, he has performed almost exclusively in free improvisation, both as a soloist and in ensemble. In 1998 Arizona University Recordings released his CD of solo piano improvisation, Dreamcatcher (AUR/Horizon CD 3007). It received Grammy nominations in two categories.

In 1995 Stallcop was awarded the Performing Arts Fellowship in Composition by the Arizona Commission on the Arts. He has been a member of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) since 1977, was elected to the American Composers Alliance (ACA) in New York in 1982 and was appointed to serve on the Phoenix Arts Commission from 1986-89. He has been active as a private instructor of composition, music theory/ear training, double bass, and piano since 1974. In 1995 he taught double bass for the Arizona School for the Arts and has been an adjunct professor of music theory in the Maricopa Community Colleges. In 1996-98, he was the music program director and instructor of creative music at Horizon Charter School in Chandler and Phoenix. He has been a member of the American Federation of Musicians since 1966, Broadcast Music Inc. since 1977.