{"id":108,"date":"2008-04-30T09:12:48","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T16:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2008-05-05T16:48:39","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T23:48:39","slug":"piano-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=108","title":{"rendered":"Piano Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"imageframe alignleft\" style=\"width:200px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment wp-att-139\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/alumni-ernie-scott_000.jpg\" alt=\"Ernie Scott \\'74, \\'76 \" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"imagecaption\">Ernie Scott &#8217;74, &#8217;76<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Ernie Scott \u201974, \u201976<\/strong> finally has the grand piano in his living room he always dreamed of. Next to it, there is a light that he switches on each morning before sitting down to fill his home with vibrant sounds of the ivories.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMusic is what\u2019s kept my life whole,\u201d said Ernie, a pianist\/ vocalist\/actor\/musical director\/ composer. \u201cI first sat down at a piano when I was six years old, and I haven\u2019t stopped since. I am able to create my own style through the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To say Ernie\u2019s career as a musician and performer is impressive would fall far short of encapsulating the depth of his greatness. His performances have been described as reminiscent of Ray Charles, with the flare of Liberace. He was the last pianist to perform at Windows on the World on the 107th floor of the North Tower before the 9\/11 attacks. He continues to play the role of Paul Robeson \u2019s longtime pianist Lawrence Brown in the Broadway and off-Broadway play <em>Paul Robeson<\/em>. His musical performances are requested at political events, luxury cruises, and cocktail lounges, and his appearances include Bill Clinton \u2019s second inaugural event, <em>Nightline with Ted Koppel<\/em>, and <em>60 Minutes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been blessed to perform at so many memorable events and meet a lot of wonderful people, \u201d said Ernie, who once enjoyed an exclusive social dinner with Rosa Parks following a performance of Robeson in New Brunswick, NJ. \u201cI still perform, but I don\u2019t travel quite as much because I get homesick and miss my wife Donna (also a composer). \u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ernie earned his Bachelor of Arts in Music Education and Master of Education from the College. He has consulted several New Jersey school districts on their music curriculum development, researched and written music history for elementary education textbooks, and served as director of numerous choirs, including the Vocal Dynamics, which performed a month-long tour in Japan in conjunction with the Sister Cities Program. Ernie still gives private voice lessons today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGordon Myers was my voice teacher at Trenton State, and I loved him,\u201d said Ernie, who performs regularly at Michael\u2019s Lounge at the Buttonwood Manor in Matawan. \u201cI have great connections to TCNJ and some terrific friendships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/alumni-ernie-scott_000.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Ernie Scott \\&#039;74, \\&#039;76 \" width=\"75\" height=\"75\" class=\"attachment wp-att-139 alignleft\" \/> Ernie Scott \u201974, \u201976 finally has the grand piano in his living room he always dreamed of. Next to it, there is a light that he switches on each morning before sitting down to fill his home with vibrant sounds of the ivories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner","category-autumn-2007"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}