Jeff Scott served as French hornist of the Oberlin-founded ensemble Imani Winds for more than 20 years, a position that took him to Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center, and countless other prominent stages. As a composer, Scott’s work lives at the intersection of European classical tradition and African American cultural expression, a space he calls ‘Urban Classical Music’. His work Passion for Bach and Coltrane, which involves original arrangements and newly composed music juxtaposing the work of J. S. Bach and John Coltrane, received the 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Compendium.
Currently in demand as a composer of concert music, Scott has recent performances and commissions by the Detroit Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and countless other ensembles and soloists. His insatiable appetite for all aspects of the creative process extends across mediums, including an Off Broadway production of Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee and the staged production of Josephine Baker: A Life of le Jazz Hot!, in addition to many original works for solo winds and ensembles of all kinds.
Scott has been a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Dance Theater of Harlem since 1995, and he has performed numerous times with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Wynton Marsalis. He was an orchestra member for The Lion King’s Broadway run from 1997 to 2005 as well as the 1994 revival of Show Boat, and he has toured with the backing ensembles of Barbra Streisand and Luther Vandross. In the studio, Scott has performed on movie soundtracks by Terence Blanchard and Tan Dun, and has collaborated with the likes of Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Chris Brubeck, and Jimmy Heath, among others.
A passionate educator, Scott is currently a Professor of French Horn and Composition at the University of Buffalo, after previously serving as Associate Professor of Music at Oberlin College Conservatory.
Learn more at www.musicbyjeffreyscott.com
Scott’s Passion for Bach and Coltrane takes listeners on a journey. Its many musical strengths speak for themselves, but as an accomplishment, it is a milestone. The seven parts of the Passion are Big Music, demonstrations that a composer can draw on many genres without apology to make art that is rich and profound, art that could not exist in any other form.
Scott’s riveting and hopeful work looks back in time into the histories of Western art music, jazz, poetry, and religious figures. But the work is powerfully forward looking: it draws on these past events with an eye on what is still to come, with a heart-full path for how to be in our new world.
.jpg)
.jpg)
