Louis Rosen is a composer, lyricist, performer, author, guitarist, educator and Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in Music Composition, whose musical style fuses and juxtaposes classical, folk, jazz and popular styles.
His 15 albums include SEVEN SOLO ALBUMS: “Life After Before" (2026, Music & Lyrics); "American Sunset” (2025 Music and Lyrics – Cadence Magazine Top Ten Album 2025); “Love And Ashes” (2023, Music & Lyrics); “Music For Guitar” (2022); “I Don’t Know Anything” (2020, Music & Lyrics); “Dust To Dust Blues” (2017, Music & Lyrics – Album of the Week, December 2027, on the Nationally Syndicated Radio program, “The Midnight Special”); “Time Was” (2013, Music & Lyric Adaptations); FIVE ALBUMS WITH VOCALIST CAPATHIA JENKINS: “South Side Stories” (2006, Music & Lyrics); “The Ache of Possibility” (2009, Music & Lyrics); the three-album “Black Loom Trilogy,” which includes Part One – “Dream Suite: Songs in Jazz and Blues” (2016, on Poems by Langston Hughes); Part Two –“One Ounce Of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs” (2008); and Part Three – “Phenomenal Woman: The Maya Angelou Songs and Songs Without Words” (2018); and THREE ALBUMS OF CONCERT MUSIC: “The Pearl Octet – Riversongs Nonet” (2024); “It Is Still Dark: Three Suites” (2022); and “Act One: Piano Music from the Theater” (2017).
Louis’ performing career has taken him from numerous appearances at NYC venues such as Birdland, Joe’s Pub and The Iridium, across the U.S. and as far abroad as Africa’s Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. His compositions have been played by an array of musicians from ensembles as varied as The Orchestra of St. Lukes, yMusic Ensemble, American Brass Quintet, The Philip Glass Ensemble, NY Pops, Ensemble for These Times, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, Society of Composers, Inc., Chicago and many more.
Other works include “Book of the Night” (1991, Music & Co-Lyrics, Goodman Theater, Chicago – Winner of John W. Schmid Award for Best New Work); “A Child’s Garden” (2000, Music, Lyric Adaptations & Co-Libretto, Off-Broadway – Named Top-Ten Off-Broadway for 2000, New York Post); 30 scores for plays on Broadway (including Lincoln Center’s 2014 Tony-nominated “Act One,” written and directed by James Lapine), Off-Broadway and at various major U.S. regional theaters; and over 25 compositions for the concert hall. Louis is also the author of the much acclaimed book, “The South Side: The Racial Transformation of an American Neighborhood,” a combination of memoir & oral narrative (Hardcover – 1998, paperback – 1999), and its theatrical adaptation, “The South Side - A Spoken Cantata” (Theater J, Washington D.C. – 1998 & 2006), and George Street Theater, New Brunswick, NJ – 1999.)
AWARDS & HONORS include: Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship—Music Composition; NEA New American Works Grant (“The South Side…”); Cadence Magazine 2025 Top-Ten Album (“American Sunset”); 2nd Gilman & Gonzalez Falla Award (Best Emerging Theater Composer); Annual ASCAP Awards, 1993-2026; The Retrospective, “Love of Song: The Music of Louis Rosen” at 92NY in Manhattan; Ensemble For These Times and Society of Composers, Inc. 2026 Performance Award Selections ("Act One Suite” for Solo Piano" and “Songs from Phenomenal Woman”); Puffin Foundation Grant and Anna Sosenko Trust Award (“One Ounce of Truth: The Nikki Giovanni Songs”); Sloan Foundation Galileo Prize & Commission, and much more.