Ellen Rowe
Acting Chair of Jazz; Chair of Conducting; Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Music
Bio
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 festivals and clubs throughout the U.S., as well as touring in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. CDs out under her own name include Sylvan Way, Wishing Well, Denali Pass and Courage Music. Her latest project, Momentum – Portraits of Women in Motion, featuring Ingrid Jensen, Tia Fuller, Marion Hayden and Allison Miller was released to widespread critical acclaim in January 2019. The Momentum band was featured at the 2022 Jazz Education Network Conference and at Dizzy’s Club (Jazz at Lincoln Center) in March of 2023. 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. 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 and orchestras around the world, including 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 Minnesota Band Directors Association, Illinois Music Educators, 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 and Excelcia (formerly 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 serves as the Coordinator for the JEN Sisters In Jazz Collegiate Combo Competition.
