It was befitting that California intellectual property attorney-turned-music producer Scott Hansen chose to meet beside the roaring fireplace of the Flathead Lake Lodge.
Within this rustic space, after all, pianist virtuoso Wayo Hogan entertained innumerable summer guests.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s begin with Hansen, who’s made an indelible mark on his legal profession by staying in the forefront of the complex and ever-changing creative technology sector: artistic ideas and inventions, patents and trademarks, commercial transactions, trade secrets, and when the going gets rough dispute resolution.
Coinciding with his Irvine law practice, the attorney has recently taken up “a new hobby,” or so he says modestly, fostered by his early exposure and background in music. His military family often posted abroad, Hansen as a child would accompany his “soprano” mother to sundry rehearsal halls, until such time he himself joined the San Diego Master Chorale as a 17-year-old “tenor.”
Music continued to play an important part of both his life and profession, to the extent he’s now become a voting member of the Recording Academy, which represents everyone from singers and songwriters to producers, engineers and educators.
Now, instead of just advising on ideas, he’s been bringing them to life. So successfully, it turns out, that Hansen and his handful of accomplished musicians—Wayo Hogan prominently among them—will be walking Los Angeles’ red carpet in just a few days’ time as part of Grammy Week, the Recording Academy’s annual series of events leading up to the Grammy Awards.
Better yet, the entire Flathead will be walking with them.
“Congratulations!” the letter to the attorney begins. “It is with great pleasure and excitement that we extend our heartfelt congratulations to you! We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected as a distinguished nominee for the esteemed World Entertainment Awards. You have been nominated for Flathead Lake: A Montana Album in Best New Age Album.”
“Released in August 2025 on our Bigfork Bay label,” Hansen tells me. “Folks from around here will notice the cover art is actually of Glacier Park.”
And if that’s not enough to grab your headphones, Wayo has been notified that he’s the WEA nominee for his solo acoustic piano arrangement Bear Valley, in celebration of Glacier Park. The stirring composition is found on the initial October 2024 Hansen-produced album, Montana Stillwater.
“We recorded Montana Stillwater in a lakeside hangar with a grand piano,” Hansen told New Age Notes Magazine. “It’s just Wayo and his piano, surrounded by the same nature the music describes.”
Said the attorney: “Wayo Hogan is an underground legend in Seattle and Montana, a multi-instrumentalist who has lived through every chapter of modern music. He’s toured Europe with a rockabilly band, then co-founded a world-music project with Alan White, drummer of Yes! Later, he played in experimental Seattle groups that helped shape the sound that became ‘grunge.’
“Eventually he settled in Montana, performing piano and guitar at the Flathead Lake Lodge [near] Bigfork Bay. My parents [Bob and Jan Hansen] live across the bay, and that’s how we met. When I suggested recording an album inspired by Glacier National Park, he immediately connected with the idea.”
As for the Flathead focus?
“Montana is in my family’s DNA,” Hansen explained. “My parents’ home overlooks Flathead Lake, and our cabin near the Swan River is where we gather every summer. Glacier National Park is about an hour away. The mountains there can turn from calm to wild in minutes. The people are tough, creative, and self-reliant. That balance of serenity and strength became the emotional foundation of the [Flathead Lake] album.”
Get a load of these track names: On the Road to Polebridge, Going to the Sun, On Lake McDonald, Many Glacier, St. Mary Falls, The Crown of the Continent, Whitefish Lake, Bigfork Bay, Swan River, and of course Bear Valley.
And wouldn’t you know as I write this column comes word that Hansen and Wayo, along with renowned arranger/performer Aritra C (immersive audio engineer Jennifer Ortiz, who has a Grammy-winning track under her belt, rounds out the team) are nominees for the 2026 New Age Notes Radio Music Awards.
Wayo and Aritra C are nominated for “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” and “Best New Age Music Video,” and Hansen for “Best Producer/Production.”
So how does Hansen describe the sounds of each nominated album?
“Montana Stillwater is intimate, acoustic, and quietly cinematic. Solo piano pieces written like postcards from Glacier and the surrounding valley,” he tells me. “It’s reflective music. Warm, natural, and meditative. Built to feel like a slow drive through forests and mountain vistas with the windows down …
“Flathead Lake: A Montana Album takes those Montana themes and opens them up into a fuller, modern soundscape. Still centered on keys and melody, but now with subtle percussion, layered textures, and an expansive ‘immersive’ sense of space.”
While we await the envelopes, check out the link to “Flathead Lake: A Montana Album,” which also contains the album booklet and a music video: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/wayohoganandaritrac/flathead-lake-a-montana-album
UPDATE: Flathead Lake: A Montana Album won the 2026 World Entertainment Award for Best New Age Album. Separately, the track Flathead Lake won for the 2026 Best New Age Song. All told, Scott Hansen’s Bigfork Bay label won seven awards for individual performances on various tracks within the album(s).
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.