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Ellen Rowe

Ellen Rowe is a jazz pianist and composer and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan.

About Me

ELLEN ROWE



Ellen Rowe, jazz pianist and composer, is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation 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 clubs and on concert series throughout the U.S., as well as touring in Europe, South Africa, South America and Australia. CDs out under her own name include “Sylvan Way”, “Wishing Well”, “Denali Pass”, “Courage Music”, “Momentum – Portraits of Women In Motion”, an octet release featuring Ingrid Jensen, Tia Fuller, Marion Hayden and Allison Miller, and “Vinton's Cove”, with her quartet, which came out in 2025. Also active as a clinician, she has given workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatory, Hochshule fur Musik in Cologne, Grieg Academy in Bergen and the Royal Academy of Music in London, in addition to many appearances as a guest artist at festivals and Universities around the country. When not leading her own small groups, she is in demand as a sideman, having performed with a wide variety of artists including Kenny Wheeler, Tim Ries, Frank Morgan, Tom Harrell, John Clayton, Ingrid Jensen, Janis Siegel and Adam Larson. 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 jazz ensembles andorchestras around the world, including the Village Vanguard Orchestra, BBC Jazz Orchestra, U.S. Navy Commodores, Berlin and NDR Radio Jazz Orchestras, Westchester Jazz Orchestra, 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 Minnesota Band Directors Association, Illinois Music Educators, Lawrence University’s Fred Sturm Jazz Festival, Florida Bandmasters Association and the Jazz Education Network, her big band compositions are currently published by Sierra Music Publications, Brava Music Publications, Excelsia Music, including Doug Beach Music and Kendor Music. 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 on the Board of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers and also serves as the Coordinator for the JEN Sisters In Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition. Other activities include serving as an adjudicator and mentor for the JEN Young Composers Showcase, adjudicating the Kimmel Center Jazz Residencies and the Lincoln Center Ertegun Hall of Fame. She has also been named a UCROSS Composer Fellow and has received three composer residencies at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for the Arts.