STEVEN LARSON
pianist composer conductor producer
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SYNIVERSAL MUSIC was formed in 2014 as an umbrella entity representing the diverse artistic enterprises of Steven Larson including distribution, sync licensing, the scoring studio, music publishing, concert management, and the Syniversal Music record label, absorbing the catalogues of the Classical Masterworks, New Age of Reason, Pianonymity and Cinemaginations labels.
Composer, pianist and improvisor Steven Larson has appeared on five continents as soloist and collaborative artist, from London’s Wigmore Hall to the Melbourne, Australia International Festival and from Bilbao’s Teatro Arriaga to Dimitris Mitropoulos Hall in Athens, Greece. He has performed extensively in recital around the world with Greek opera star Markella Hatziano (markella.com) with whom he has recorded albums of the songs of Franz Liszt, the complete song cycles of Manolis Kalomiris as well as the successful original crossover songs Ellada, The Magic of Reality, Enchantress and Operadical.
As a young former assistant conductor at the Opera Company of Boston under Sarah Caldwell, Mr. Larson worked closely with American composer Robert DiDomenica in preparation for the world premiere of his opera The Balcony, later traveling to Moscow under the auspices of the U.S. State Department where the opera became the first American opera to be performed in the Bolshoi Theatre. He has been a rehearsal pianist for opera productions in London, Barcelona, Berlin, Salzburg and Lisbon, working under such conductors as Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa and Christoph von Dohnanyi.
He has recorded for the Classical Masterworks label, most recently the album Prologue focusing on some of the most extreme virtuosic pieces in the repertoire including the Scherzo and March of Liszt. His original compositions, span a vast range of styles, from neoclassical, pop, minimalism, trance, electronic, new age, adult contemporary and even country. Mr. Larson has over 120 original piano compositions to his credit, many of which have been released on the Syniversal Music label, such as the 2017 album Journey to Elsewhere, the live improvisations Hyperspace, Love Letter and Soul Search, and recent singles, A Nebraska Moonlight Sonata, Carousels, Carousels, A Billion-Carat Valentine and Sandhills Nocturne. A native Nebraskan, he is the composer of the popular virtuosic Nebraska Strong composed after the catastrophic flooding of 2019.
Mr. Larson wrote the score for the short film ‘Lizzie’ which debuted at the Omaha Film Festival in March 2019 and the Lincoln Film Festival in May 2019. Several hours of performances of his original works can be watched in the film, Elsewhere: A Journey Within, filmed at UNL in late 2018, produced by LA-based director Elijah Watson.
As author and pedagogue, he is the creator of Piano Plasticity, The Revolutionary Path to Pianistic Mastery, an innovative concept designed as a comprehensive piano method drawing on his extensive knowledge of the history of piano technique, the mathematical field of combinatorics and neuroplasticity.
He currently lives in Chicago and has a daughter who is a violin performance major at the University of Nebraska.
Steven was diagnosed with Covid-19 at the end of December 2020 and was hospitalized in Chicago for three weeks in ICU and another four weeks in a rehabiliation center undergoing physical therapy to regain his mobility. By a twist of fate, he was placed in a facility that had a new Weber grand piano in an unused activity room where he was able to practice daily to bring back his cognitive function and work on brain fog and memory issues resulting from the after effects of Covid. Below are several videos made towards the end of his stay.