Born in Melbourne, Australia, and now based in the UK, Rowan Vince is a pianist, keyboardist, composer and software engineer. He studied piano with Trevor Barnard and organ with John Mallinson at the University of Melbourne, and later studied composition with Maestro Joe Paparone. He holds a BMus(Hons) in pianoforte performance and a BSc in computer science.
Rowan received the outstanding pianist award in the 1996 Dandenong Festival of Music and Art for Youth, and more recently the Melbourne Fringe Festival Music Award in 2005 and in 2008 for his eclectic "Vince in Recital" piano concerts.
Alongside his solo piano work, Rowan has appeared with various diverse groups including the Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra, Q chamber ensemble, cabaret-opera act "Profane Primadonnas", and indie-pop band Wellyn. He has repetiteured for Melbourne Opera, struggled valiantly to teach keyboards to primary school children for three quarters of a year, and was the accompanist for the Essendon Choral Society for 10 years. He has released an independent CD, "Rhapsodic Piano from Bach to Gershwin and Beyond".
Rowan's work is directed at presenting the art of the keyboard instrument in exciting, off beat, and technologically savvy ways. He premierred his work "Barbarian" for pipe organ, synthesizer, and computer at the Melbourne Town Hall in 2010. In 2011 he teamed up with New Zealand tenor Timoti Bramley to perform "New Gospel", an electro-acoustic pastiche of opera, gospel, and jazz.
More outlandish performances include playing death metal on a pipe organ in the Melbourne International Arts Festival and destroying a piano after performing Schumman's half hour long Fantasie Op. 17.
