Biography

Ellen Rowe, jazz pianist and composer, is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emerita of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation and Earl V. Moore Collegiate Professor Emerita of Music at the University of Michigan. Prior to her appointment in Michigan, she served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Ms. Rowe has performed at jazz festivals and clubs throughout the U.S., as well as touring in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. CDs out under her own name include the recently released “Vinton’s Cove”, “Sylvan Way”, “Wishing Well”, “Denali Pass”, “Courage Music” and “Momentum – Portraits of Women in Motion”, featuring Ingrid Jensen, Tia Fuller, Melissa Gardiner, Virginia Mayhew, Lisa Parrott, Marion Hayden and Allison Miller. The Momentum band has been featured at the Jazz Education Network Conference, Dizzy’s Club (Jazz at Lincoln Center) and the Amazonas Jazz Festival in Brazil. Also active as a clinician, she has given workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatory, Hochshüle fur Musik in Cologne, Grieg Academy in Bergen Eastman School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music in London, in addition to many appearances as a guest artist at festivals and universities around the country. She was also a guest on two installments of Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” on National Public Radio.

Ms. Rowe's compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by the Village Vanguard Orchestra, BBC Jazz Orchestra, U.S. Navy Commodores, Berlin and NDR Radio Jazz Orchestras, London Symphony, DIVA and the Perth Jazz Orchestra. Many of these works can be heard on recordings including “Leave It To DIVA”, “The Perth Jazz Orchestra”, “Bingo” (The Bird of Paradise Orchestra) and “I Believe In You” (DIVA). A recipient of jazz ensemble commissions from the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, Minnesota Band Directors Association, Air Force Golden Band of the West Commanders Jazz Ensemble, Illinois Music Educators, Florida Bandmasters Association, Lawrence University’s Fred Sturm Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Education Network, her big band compositions are currently published by Sierra Music Publications, Doug Beach Music, Brava Music, Kendor and Excelcia Music Publishing.

Having been selected to conduct the NAfME All-Eastern and All-Northwest Jazz Ensembles as well as All-State jazz ensembles throughout the country, she has also been an invited clinician at the National Association for Music Education Eastern Division Convention, International Society for Jazz Composition and Arranging Symposium and Jazz Education Network conferences. She is the Vice-President of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers and serves as the Coordinator for the JEN Sisters In Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition.