Eric J. Scott is a versatile and dynamic conductor with nearly two decades of experience working with musicians, ranging from beginners through professionals. His passion for musicmaking spans traditional masterworks to contemporary compositions written in our current time. A champion of new music, Dr. Scott has recently led consortiums for works by Jessie Montgomery, the Mead Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Anthony Barfield, faculty member of the Juilliard School of Music. He has also contributed to consortiums for new works by renowned composers such as Alan Theisen, Jim Stephenson, Gala Flagello, Patrick Harlan, Andrew Blair, Gilda Lyons, and Damien Geter.

As the Director of Bands at Indiana State University, Dr. Scott oversees a dynamic program, conducting the Wind Orchestra and Concert Band while also teaching courses in conducting and instrumental music education. Recent collaborations with the Wind Orchestra include renowned composers Katahj Copley, Jim Stephenson, Alan Theisen, Miguel del Aguila, and Shawn Okpebholo. In addition to his ensemble conducting, Dr. Scott spearheads education outreach programs like the All-Star Honor Band and the Dr. John P. Boyd Concert Band Invitational, which brings hundreds of prospective students to campus annually. Prior to his role at Indiana State University, he served as Assistant Director of Bands at The University of Southern Mississippi, where he assisted with all facets of the band program and taught courses in the undergraduate conducting curriculum.

Highlights from his conducting career include collaborating with the ~Nois Saxophone Quartet at the 2023 North American Saxophone Alliance Conference and becoming a finalist for the American Prize in Wind Conducting. While in Mississippi, he also collaborated with Festival South to create a chamber music and beer pairing concert titled Bee(r)toven. Off the podium, highlights include a premiere performance of his transcriptions of Blue Hour Skyline by Kevin Day in 2023, which is anticipated to be published through Murphy Press in 2025, and “SkyLine” from City Scapes by Jennifer Higdon, which was premiered by the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble in 2020.

Dr. Scott is a dedicated scholar focused on preserving and reviving historical music. In 2024, he received the Indiana State University Arts & Research Endowment Grant to study the Erwin Schulhoff Special Collections in Prague, uncovering unpublished works and correspondence of Schulhoff, whose life was tragically cut short in the Holocaust. He has presented on Schulhoff’s music at the 2023 North American Saxophone Alliance Conference and the 2024 International Society for Research of Wind Music in Valencia, Spain. Dr. Scott will also visit Berlin to gather materials for a contemporary wind ensemble arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Trauermusik fur Harmoniemusik in the spring of 2025.

As a Tennessee native, Dr. Scott spent a decade as a public-school teacher in the greater Nashville area. He holds a Doctorate in Wind Conducting at Northwestern University, where he was a conducting student of Dr. Mallory Thompson, a Master’s in Wind Conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, where he studied conducting with Steven D. Davis, and a Bachelor of Music Education from Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Scott is a member of the Indiana State School Music Association, American School Band and Orchestra Association, National Association for Music Education, Kappa Kappa Psi, and the College Band Directors National Association.

Dr. Scott lives in Indiana with his partner Noah, and their loveable rescue dogs, Tucker and Squiggles.