Announcing a New Album of Piano Music of Scott Joplin from pianist Marilyn Nonken

Divine Art Records is delighted to announce the forthcoming release of an album of piano music by Scott Joplin and his collaborators. Largely avoiding the well-known rags which have been recorded so many times, on this new album American pianist Marilyn Nonken explores the music and influence of Scott Joplin, on a unique recording that features rags, concert waltzes, and novelties, as well as Joplin’s collaborations with Louis Chauvin, Joseph Lamb, Scott Hayden, and Arthur Marshall.

Acclaimed for her interpretations of works by early twentieth-century composers such as Arnold Schönberg and Charles Ives, Nonken turns her attention to their contemporary, Joplin, whose music – often mischaracterized as a simply American vernacular – reveals his close ties to opera and vocal genres. In Joplin’s works and those of his students and colleagues, one recognizes a heretofore underappreciated worldliness, elegance, and virtuosity. Taken together, these compositions celebrate the lively artistic community of which Joplin was the central figure, highlighting the underappreciated lyrical and dramatic range of ragtime itself.

Pianist and musicologist Marilyn Nonken has been heralded as “a determined protector of important music” (New York Times) and “one of the greatest interpreters of new music” (American Record Guide). Writes Fanfare: “Her virtuosity is equalled only by the insight and passion with which every piece is imbued.” Since 2006, she has been Director of Piano Studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School.

A student of David Burge at the Eastman School, she is the author of The Spectral Piano (Cambridge, 2015) and Identity and Diversity in New Music (Routledge, 2019). She has recorded more than 30 discs, and has published widely on various topics in 20th-century music. Her two albums of spectral piano music for Divine Art’s Métier label have received superb reviews and her recording of the piano music of Tristan Murail is Métier’s best-selling title.

A Steinway artist, Dr. Nonken lives on New York’s historic Lower East Side with her husband, two children, four cats, and a tortoise.

The new collection which is titled ‘Syncopated Musings’ is to be recorded in New York in April and is scheduled for release around October 2021.