Scott Wheeler

Scott Wheeler’s operas have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera. the Guggenheim Foundation and White Snake Projects. His music has been performed by violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Kent Nagano, and singers Renee Fleming, Sanford Sylvan, and Susanna Phillips.

Mr. Wheeler has appeared as conductor in New York, Berlin, Boston, and on several recordings, often with the Boston-based ensemble Dinosaur Annex, which he co-founded and directed for many years. He has also conducted many productions of opera and musical theatre works and has appeared as a pianist in a wide repertoire of classical, jazz, and cabaret.​​

Scott Wheeler studied at Amherst College, New England Conservatory, and Brandeis. His principal teachers were Lewis Spratlan, Arthur Berger and Virgil Thomson, along with studies at Dartington with Peter Maxwell Davies and Tanglewood with Olivier Messiaen. His many awards include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Bogliasco Foundation, the American Academy in Berlin and the Classical Recording Foundation. He is Senior Distinguished Artist in Residence at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches musical theatre and songwriting.

Wheeler's compositions have been described as "shining with craftsmanship" by the New York Times, "rhythmically and sonically inventive" by the Boston Musical Intelligencer, and "succinct and stylist" by the New York Classical Review.