Profile

Connecticut native Scott Perkins (he/him) enjoys a multifaceted career as an international prize-winning composer of vocal music, an award-winning scholar, and a dynamic educator. His “beautifully crafted” (American Record Guide) and “tightly composed” (Choral Journal) compositions have been called “dramatic” and “colorful” (The Washington Post), and “perfectly orchestrated” and “haunting” (The Washington Times). He has been commissioned by organizations ranging from the Washington National Opera to the American Guild of Organists, and his work has been performed throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. He has released three discs on the Gothic and Navona labels, and he is published by E. C. Schirmer, Augsburg Fortress, Paraclete Press, and Encore Music Creations. He has been an invited guest lecturer on his music and research at Harvard University, The Hartt School, Boston University, and the University of the Pacific.

Scott’s recent and current projects have been extended works that support and illuminate the words of living authors on themes of social justice, environmentalism, and mental health. His style can be characterized by its lyricism, modal influences, tonal centricity, and metric flexibility. Benjamin Britten, Thomas Tallis, Sigur Rós, Arvo Pärt, and Samuel Barber have influenced the techniques and sound of some of his music.

Scott’s research interests are diverse. He has presented on: the integration of Western and non-Western music in musicianship curricula at conferences of the College Music Society and the Society of Arts Entrepreneurship Educators; teaching music-reading skills to amateur choirs at a convention of the American Guild of Organists at Yale University; and 17th-century lute song performance practice at the University of Chicago. He gave the keynote address and a paper on the history and reception of Messiaen’s work in the United States as part of the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the premiere of the Quartet for the End of Time in Zgorzelec, Poland. His work on the music of Benjamin Britten was awarded a prize by the New York State-St. Lawrence Chapter of the American Musicological Society.

Scott has concertized as a tenor specializing in early and modern Western classical music throughout the United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, and Norway. He has performed with numerous professional ensembles as both a vocalist and a conductor, and he is a featured soloist on CDs produced by Bridge Records and Loft Recordings.

Scott is Associate Professor of Music at California State University, Sacramento, where he is Head of Music Theory and Composition. For five years, Scott served as co-director of Sacramento State’s Festival of New American Music (FeNAM), the nation’s longest-running, free new music festival. He has also taught at DePauw University, Central Connecticut State University, Nazareth College, and the Interlochen Summer Arts Academy.

Scott earned his PhD in Composition with minors in music theory and music history at the Eastman School of Music, where his primary teacher was Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. He holds an MA in Music Theory and an MA in Music Theory Pedagogy from Eastman, and he has a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in music theory and composition with a sub-concentration in vocal performance from Boston University. A lifelong learner, he studies Hindustani music with Saili Oak, the acclaimed North Indian classical vocalist of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana, and Arabic music with the international prize-winning qanun virtuoso and vocalist Ali Paris.