About Scott
Dr. Scott Routenberg enjoys a versatile and prolific career as an award-winning composer, arranger, jazz pianist and orchestrator. For over a decade, Routenberg's music has garnered widespread critical acclaim, with the artist emerging as a "distinctive original voice" in modern jazz composition (Fred Sturm). In 2004, Scott was the first jazz songwriter to win the coveted John Lennon Songwriting Contest Maxell Song of the Year. Other notable awards and honors include The ASCAP Foundation/Symphonic Jazz Orchestra Commissioning Prize (2016), the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers Symposium SONIC Award for Best Arrangement (2017), the ASCAP David Rose Scholarship, Composer Scholar at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles, the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award (three-time winner), participant in the ASCAP Television and Film Scoring Workshop and the DOWNBEAT Student Award for Best Extended Length Composition.
As a jazz arranger, Routenberg has been commissioned by multiple Grammy-winning ensembles and artists, including the Metropole Orkest and harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy. Since 2009, Routenberg has worked as an arranger for "Singapore's King of Swing," Jeremy Monteiro. Recent arranging projects for Monteiro include his 2022 symphonic jazz concerts "Tapestry," and "45 RPM" at Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore. Routenberg's orchestral music has been premiered by the Symphonic Jazz Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Youth Symphony, among many other ensembles. World premieres include Austria, Romania, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, China, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and domestic premieres include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.
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Hailed as a "rising-star pianist" who has "found his own voice in the modern mainstream" (Scott Yanow, JAZZIZ), Routenberg has performed with internationally renowned jazz musicians the likes of Howard Levy, Miguel Zenón, Steve Davis, Ryan Keberle, John Fedchock, Christian Howes, and vocalist Alexis Cole, and has opened for jazz guitar legend John Scofield. Jazz festival and club performances include the Montreux Jazz Festival, Jazz à Vienne, the North Sea Jazz Festival, Indy Jazz Fest, Elkhart Jazz Fest, the Gainesville Jazz Festival, The Green Mill (Chicago), The Jazz Kitchen (Indianapolis), The Velvet Note (Atlanta), Rudy's Jazz Room (Nashville), The Home Smith Bar at the Old Mill (Toronto, Canada), and The Palladium (Carmel, IN). The Scott Routenberg Trio's debut album on Summit Records, Every End is a Beginning (2017), reached #65 on the JazzWeek radio chart, #33 on the Roots Music Report Top 50 Jazz Albums, and was named Jazz Album of the Week by soulandjazz.com. The Creative Source's Dr. Brad Stone hailed the album as "an early candidate for jazz record of the year." The trio's sophomore album SUPERMOON (2018, Summit Records) received critical praise as "a work of unified expression from a charismatic trio...with substantial moments of gratification" (Jazz Trail). Jazz Weekly described the album as "a decalogue of Routenberg's compositions...rich in lyricism," declaring that "the modern jazz piano trio is alive and well." SUPERMOON received wide airplay on dozens of jazz stations nationwide and abroad. Praised as "a fine display of the power of the mind" and an "unforgettable studio production," Routenberg's latest release [INSIDE] (2020, Summit Records) is a genre-bending, pandemic-inspired home studio album recorded during quarantine that explores the artist's electro-acoustic nu jazz roots.
Routenberg's film credits on IMDB.com include director Peter Krygowski's award-winning film noir short "The Joes" (2021). In 2007 Routenberg was commissioned by Day 1 Studios and Lucas Arts to write demo music for the video game Fracture.
Routenberg is a graduate of the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Routenberg is currently Associate Professor of Jazz Piano at Ball State University, where he received the 2018-2019 College of Fine Arts Dean's Creative Endeavor Award for the School of Music. Dr. Routenberg's students have played the Montreux Jazz Festival and Dizzy's Club at Lincoln Center, and have won scholarships and awards including the DownBeat Student Music Awards. Routenberg served on the jury for the prestigious American Pianists Association Jazz Piano Competition Premiere Series (2018-2019), where he helped choose Cole Porter Fellowship winner Emmet Cohen. Dr. Routenberg reprised his role as a juror in the 2022-2023 American Pianists Awards season, with Isaiah J. Thompson winning the $200,000 Cole Porter Fellowship, which is the largest jazz prize in the world.