Best Composer off the Beaten Track
Steve Parker
Music in a traditional auditorium is well and good, but if we've learned one thing from Steve Parker, it's that all the world's a concert hall. This local composer, trombonist, and all-around music-making maverick has placed a dozen trombone players on the Lake Austin shoreline, invited the public to play recycled instruments in the City Hall parking garage, and, in his Soundspace series at the Blanton Museum of Art, marched 100 tubas through the atrium and stuffed soloists in elevators. He'll make music anywhere and with virtually anything, as he proved with Traffic Jam, his recent concert of new music by local composers performed on the asphalt of Blue Starlite Drive-In, with instruments ranging from pedicabs to wheels to car horns by the dozens. His boldness and fervor inspire us and carloads of other music lovers to go off-roading with him at every opportunity. Honk if you love Steve Parker!
