雲梯詩綾 (Yún tī shī líng) —“Cloud Ladder, Silken Poem” (Ongoing, 2024-present)
Description: This ongoing performance/composition project, inspired by an imagined narrative, explores the fantasy of an unnamed poet's essay transforming into silk that forms a ladder to the heavenly realm, symbolizing an ascent from the earthly to the divine. Unlike my other interdisciplinary works, this piece excludes digital elements, focusing on acoustic experiments that use water to modulate the pitches of 25 distinct found objects, including bowls, tubes, and repurposed materials. The work combines my research in pitch manipulation and the ephemeral qualities of sound, evoking the poet’s words as they become a silk ladder, ascending into clouds and inviting the poet to glimpse the celestial realm. The performance involves 2-3 performers. Cloud Ladder also includes a planned collaboration with coders to develop LED lighting panels that emit music-responsive patterns, visually representing the ladder and immersing viewers in an integrated installation artwork during performances.

Please allow for a moment for the file to load after clicking play

[Selected Works]Full works list on MHA's website Links to outside this websiteMHA: The Book of Sounds
Live Piano Performance of Otte's Spiritual minimalist work The Book of Sounds for Piano
Body Performance | Calligraphy | Projection Media | Audience participation
December 2023 | in co-presentation with Highways Performance Space and Gallery Santa Monica, L.A., USAMEMORY BOX I, Knocking; Fingers; an old mossy Japanese temple with odd shadows and no monk, 1'24'' (2023)
4K Digital Art Film, Dimensions Variable—[3840x2160 | 4K | 60p | Stereo Sound | 48kGz]Matchsticks: Crosses of Blood 3’30’’(2022)
4K Digital Art Film, Dimensions Variable—[3840x2160 | 4K | 60p | Stereo Sound | 48kGz][Jolivet X MHA]: “ MANA V. La Vache 1'40'' (2022)
Digital Artwork
Virtual Music—Art—Work
Dimensions variable
4k video, green screen fabric, metal armature, rope, ties, various locations and seasons
winter season film location: Northwest rural China
summer season film location: Hangzhou, China“Cosmogonie | Cosmogony, for the planets & stars” (2021)
Installation & Performance Video
Dimensions Variable
Bluetooth controlled lights, LED colored lightbulbs, Antique lamps, Antique style lightbulbs—various sizes, Cords, Mesh, Twine, Cables, Hemp string cables, Hamburg Steinway
Music: André Jolivet—Prélude pour piano, Cosmogonie, (1938)Fleeting Scroll, 14'19'', (2021)
Digital art film & live performance installation
Dimensions Variable
Silk fabric, 7ft wood dowels, rubber, aged metal clips, digital media, projector, laptop, standing lights, steinway piano, pianist
Maurice Ohana: 12 Etudes d'interprétation pour piano: Nr. 6 & 9Monet's Love, 12'14'', (2021)
Art film & live performance installation
Dimensions Variable
Cut flowers, Vellum, Rubber bands, DSLR, Silk fabric, 7ft wood dowels, rubber, aged metal clips, digital media, projector, laptop, standing lights, steinway piano, pianist
François Couperin: Pièces de Clavecin"La boîte à Bijoux, A Night's Wayfaring Stranger", 2'02'' (2021)
Digital art film
Virtual Music—Art—Work
Dimensions variable
Julia Wolfe, Earring for Solo Piano"The Horizonless River", 7'24'' (2021)
Digital art film
Virtual Music—Art—Work
Dimensions variable
William Bolcom Étude Nr. 12, Hymne à l'amour, from 12 New Ètudes for Piano"Good Night On Sixth", 3'59'' (2020-21)
Digital art film
Virtual Music—Art—Work
Unsuk Chin: Étude Nr. 6, Grains, pour piano"Orior; oritus sum" (2020)
Hand-animated art film
George Crumb, Makrokosmos: Twelve Fantasy-Pieces after the Zodiac, Vol. II, I. Morning Music (Genesis II) (Cancer)"There's April In The West Wind, And Pansies" (2020)
Art film, freshly cut flower petals, vellum paper, rubber bands
Dimensions variable
Olivier Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, I. Regard du PèreRecent Exhibitions
Solo Exhibition: Ant Nests—Allegory of the Cave at Highways Gallery, Santa Monica L.A. (December 2023)
Solo Performance of MHA: The Book of Sounds in co-presentation with Highways Performance Space L.A. (December 2023)
FILE São Paulo 2023 Electronic Language International Festival São Paulo, Brazil (July-August 2023)
"1989" at the Cerritos Gallery, LA, USA (Aug. 29-oct. 6 2022)
"1989" [Part II.] MinEastry of Postcollapse Art and Culture, Portland, USA (Jan.-Feb. 2022)
URBAN: Works About the City, or City Life (Part of the Season 18 Five Themes Project) [MANIFEST Gallery, Cincinnati]
Solo Exhibition and public art installation @ Huacheng Square, Guangzhou (October 2021)
Éternité Éphémère Exhibition Paris, France (2021)
The Jupiter Museum of Art in Shenzhen, Group Exhibition (2021)
Solo Exhibition and public art installation @ Huacheng Square, Guangzhou (May 2021)
5th Annual Special Exhibition of Justart Space, Guangzhou, Group Exhibition (2020)

Scott Lowell Sherman is an interdisciplinary pianist, visual artist, composer, and researcher with over half a decade of specialized study in applied interdisciplinary work across visual and sonic arts. His work spans composition, sound art and installation, and digital media, all grounded in a strong foundation in traditional classical piano performance. As co-founder of the collective MusicXHabitatXArt (MHA), Sherman has led and produced international projects that integrate digital artworks, new media, experimental techniques, and performance, fostering collaborations across the U.S., China, Brazil, UK, and Europe. MHA’s initiatives blend public performances, exhibitions, digital artworks and installation, and artist residencies with cutting-edge approaches to visual and sonic art. Ongoing collaborations include Al-Tiba9 (Spain), La Iglesia de Nuestro Salvador (Cincinnati), One Minute Art (Shenzhen), and independent artists specializing in digital media and robotic arts for innovative installation projects.Sherman has performed and lectured globally in China, Japan, Canada, Israel, Spain, France, Portugal, and the USA. His recent projects include his album Allegory of the Cove: Midnight...Daybreak...Dusk, an immersive soundscape featuring porcelain gongs, piano, archival bird calls, and digitally manipulated sounds. His current composition project, Cloud Ladder, Silken Poem (雲梯詩綾), delves into acoustic experimentation with water-modulated pitches and celestial themes, creating a staged experience inspired by an imagined journey to the heavens. Through MHA, Sherman continues to explore cross-disciplinary work, inviting audiences to experience new intersections of sound, performance, and visual art.Sherman’s mentors and teachers include Minsoo Sohn, Soyeon Kate Lee, Ronald Cavaye, Sandra Rivers, Catherine Rollin. Sherman has worked with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Julian Martin, Emanual Krasovsky, Dmitri Bashkirov, Ursula Oppens, Jerome Lowenthal, Ran Dank, Tatiana Zelickman, Frederic Chiu, Deborah Moriarty. Sherman holds a Doctorate, AD, MM, from the College-Conservatory of music, with a cognate in experimental composition, and research focus in applied interdisciplinary study in visual and sonic arts. Sherman is a laureate of the Tel-Hai International Piano Masterclasses in Israel, 20th International Duo Competition, Nihon University College of Art in Japan, Ann & Charles Eisemann Young Artists Competition. Sherman was guest artist at FILE São Paulo 2023, Electronic Language International Festival (Brazil), Porto Piano Fest (Portugal), Mendocino International Summer Music Academy (CA), Highways Performance L.A., and is currently serving as panelist with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Music Education.

[Most Recent Compositions]Allegory of the Cove: Midnight...Daybreak...Dusk
Movement I: A cove's memory of the stars and fractured moonlight (Cove at Midnight) [24'49'']
Movement II: ...And then daybreak opens from the heavens and boats whistle strange tunes (Cove at Daybreak) [12'27'']
Movement III: ...as dusk enters, crickets and fireflies make friends with a traveling fisherman (Cove at Dusk) [10'00'']Préludes d’Interpretation Book II (2023-in progress)
Prélude X: …Sculpture II: A stone epitaph of a patron of arts, whose grave reaches for the calm heavens above, upon a barren golden hill of green
Prélude XI: …Metal II: These 150-feet-high metal sculptures are now full of life, Hommage à Louise Bourgeois
Prélude IX: …Dancing cherry blossom petals talk in rhymes in a courtyard of the poet Li Bai, then, Henry and Y. sleep under long cattail grasses
Prélude VIII: …Ballet: simple melody, shooting stars, procession of masked spirits & adoration of courtesan fireflies in the shadow of the moonPréludes d’Interpretation Book I (2023)Douze Études Poétiques, pour piano (2019-i.p.)
(Twelve Poetic Etudes, using traditional Japanese and Chinese literature) [begun 2019, In progress]I. Contrastes Athlétiques (Athletic Contrasts)
(Commissioned by Jiao Sun, premiered at University of Chicago October, 2021)
II. Sons Impalpables (Impalpable Sounds)
III. Extract du monde—partition graphique (Extract of the world—graphic score)
IV. Lignes Croisées (Crossed Lines)
V. Trilles Vestigiaux | Structures Résiduelles (Vestigial Trills | Residual Structures)
VI. Sons Éphémères (Ephemeral Sounds) pour piano et ideé fixe
VII: Sons Impalpables, (Impalpable Sounds)Le Sang des Étoiles, pour piano ~ 9'
(The Blood of the Stars)
from Le Livre des Étoiles (The Book of Stars)
Commissioned for the 14th Concours International D’orleans
Premiered by Yaoyue Huang for the 14th Concours International D’orleans in France.La descente de Dante et la belle pâleur de l'étoile d'un amant, pour piano ~ 12'
(Dante's descent and the beautiful paleness of a lover's star)
from Le Livre des Étoiles (The Book of Stars)
Premiered by Yaoyue Huang for the Porto Pianofest in Porto, PortugalL'abandon d'une étoile éthérée, pour piano ~ 6'
(The abandonment of an ethereal star)
from Le Livre des Étoiles (The Book of Stars)Le sabbat d'Élie, avec l'étoile de David au-dessus d’eux, pour piano ~ 10'
(Elijah's sabbath, with David's star above them)
from Le Livre des Étoiles (The Book of Stars)A sleeping child’s dreamcatcher on a wind’s whisper of melancholy spring, piano four-hands ~ 20'
(Le capteur de rêves d'un enfant endormi sur le murmure d'un vent de mélancolie printanière)

Keywords:
Music—Art—Work,
Public & private space,
Digital age performance,
Interdisciplinary practice,
Healing through experience,
20 & 21st century composers,
20 & 21st century piano music,
Mixture the auditory & the visual,
Performance practice during a pandemic,
Contemplation on contemporary music & art,
Appreciating modern music and art in new ways,
The HABITAT that the marriage of MUSIC & ART create for you.

Hans Otte, Das Buch der Klänge für klavier (The Book of Sounds for piano solo)Keywords:
Aura
Spiritual minimalism
Sound installation & performance
Space & time, outside of time as we know
Spiritual performance practice; Zen of piano
Recording the same work in the morning, & the evening
How does performance & recording change with the "aura" of the space?

“Cosmogonie | Cosmogony, for the planets & stars” (2021)
Installation & Performance VideoDimensions Variable
Bluetooth controlled lights, LED colored lightbulbs, Antique lamps, Antique style lightbulbs—various sizes, Cords, Mesh, Twine, Cables, Hemp string cables, Hamburg SteinwayKeywords:
Installation
Music Video
Experimental performance video
Lights and performing by and among lamp-light
The origin of the universe, distant planets, and stars
The performance space and stage as a solar system of lights
Antique lightbulbs, oversized lightbulbs, antique lamps, LED lights, LED bluetooth controlled lights
Piano and pianist placed among the stars and planets, with colored lights and lightbulbs representing the cosmosMusic: André Jolivet—Prélude pour piano, Cosmogonie, (1938) (Cosmogonie for piano solo)

[Selection]Le Belle Femme qui Dort Parmi les Étoiles (The Beautiful Women who Sleeps Among the Stars)Elm Branch Swing (A View From the Private Courtyard of Li Bai) {2021}Histoire de l'existence des os (History of the existence of bones)Observations d'un cimetière mort dans un musée inoccupé (Observations from a dead cemetery at an unoccupied museum)Twelve Portraits Of The Many Of UsPastorale, In conversation with a single leaf of holy basil (A flight and winged pink dove airs across a late lit afternoon sky)Ships in bottles from Sieben GedichtstückKrzywy Domek from Sieben GedichtstückeThief from Sieben GedichtstückeRed Coral Necklaces from Sieben GedichtstückeOne or Three ScenesA Visage; two character poems

Elm Branch Swing [A View From the private courtyard of Li Bai]Upon the branchesSwinging lightly,A flower petal wishes for something human

Pastorale, In conversation with a single leaf of holy basil(A flight and winged pink dove airs across a late lit afternoon sky)—In conversation with a single leaf of holy basil,A flight and winged pink dove airs across a late lit afternoon sky,While its owl friend drones on such a crestfallen cry,This time where twinkling and a king's crested sword crossfire,A new frostbitten fingertip on a light-footed fairytale,Like special books bound in the hide of some sad fallen creature,Begins again reborn from the ashes that were once swept fearlessly away;To and from, away from hereBut you mustn't fight- calm your strange quells of fear and do as I pleadLay across this pasture and close your eyes to be taken awayAlong a road to a time where twinkling and a kings crested crossfireYour birth and smiles of stars next to youSmiling gently at gems thrown aboveTo ashes and special books made of hide of some sad creatureLaying in the grass quietly twinkling, far away from hereAnd yet again I plead to you- you mustn’t fightLay across this padded grassAnd sink slowly down, to ashes and special brooks which tell your storyYour birth and smiles of stars singing next to youHappily carry you in the lightness, in birth and death