After making his international debut with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg as part of the 2007 Acanthes Festival, Scott Seaton was praised as a conductor with "finesse, clarity, and precision.” Scott is currently the Director of Orchestras at Kent State University and Assistant Conductor of Festival Opera in California.
Previously, Scott has held posts with the Orchestre de l'Université de Montréal, the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra, the New England Collective Chamber Orchestra, the New England Conservatory Symphony, the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and Opera Theatre, the Nashville Intercollegiate Orchestra, and the Nashville Youth Symphony, among others. In 2005 he made his professional debut at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, conducting the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra in Rafael Hernandez's Unfadeable.
A strong advocate of new music, Scott has conducted and performed more than 15 premieres in the past two years alone. In 2007, he gave his Jordan Hall debut at the New England Conservatory with the New England Collective Chamber Orchestra performing works by emerging talents in the Boston area. Additionally, he has appeared on New Music for the Sonically Curious, a series of performances in Boston devoted to works of composers in the New England area. That same year, he assisted Paolo Bellomia with the Contemporary Music Workshop held in the Czech Republic where he led a performance with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra. Scott also works with the New York City-based Mimesis, an ensemble dedicated to the music of living composers, and he will lead them in several performances in the coming year.
Scott was recently selected to participate in the 2010 Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany. He is one of twelve selected out of an applicant pool of over 280 conductors from 68 countries that will conduct the Bamberg Symphony in February and March of 2010. This past spring, Scott was a finalist for the assistant conductor positions of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he made the finals for two prestigious conducting fellowships, including one with the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Junior Fellowship at the Royal Northern College of Music under the mentorship of Mark Elder. In 2008 he participated in the National Conducting Institute where he worked with Leonard Slatkin and conducted the National Symphony Orchestra. Seaton was also selected by Kurt Masur to participate again in his conducting seminar in New York City in 2009.
Scott has earned degrees from the Université de Montréal, the New England Conservatory, and Vanderbilt University. He is a protégé of Michael Morgan and has assisted him with orchestras in North America and South America. Scott's past teachers include Jean-François Rivest and Robin Fountain and he has done additional seminars with Gustav Meier, Marin Alsop, Larry Rachleff, Kenneth Kiesler, Alexander Mickelthwate, Peter Eötvös, and Zsolt Nagy, among others.
Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Scott currently resides in Kent, Ohio.