Scott Faulkner is faculty director of the League of American Orchestras’ Essentials of Orchestra Management program, a 10-day seminar which takes place at The Juilliard School each summer, as well as director of its League Alumni Network. He has also served on the League board, chairing its Marketing and Membership committee. He regularly consults with orchestras and arts groups, as well as mentoring young administrators, across the country. From 2001 to 2015, Scott was Executive Director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra.
An active musician, Scott is the principal bassist of the Reno Philharmonic and the Reno Chamber Orchestra, having played in both groups since 1995. He has performed with orchestras, ensembles, and in festivals around the country including Classical Tahoe, Fresno Philharmonic, La Musica Chamber Music Festival, Nevada Chamber Music Festival (which he helped found), Sunriver Music Festival, Tacoma Symphony, and Tacoma Opera. He has shared the stage with the likes of The Captain and Tennille, Bruno Giuranna, Clive Greensmith, Adolph Herseth, Gary Karr, Robert Levin, Antonio Meneses, Edgar Meyer, Leonard Nimoy, Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman, Pascal Rogé, and Yes. He plays a 1735 Hornsteiner-Mittenwald double bass.
Scott is the founding (now past) board president of Project: Music Heals Us, a non-profit that brings music of the highest caliber to diverse audiences, focusing on elderly, homeless, refugee, hospitalized, and incarcerated populations. He also sits on the advisory board of Note-Able Music Therapy Services.
An advocate for the music of our time, Scott has been directly involved in commissioning and premiering works by composers such as Jimmy Lopez Bellido, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Theofanidis, Joan Tower, James Winn, and Zhou Tian. He serves on the steering committee of New Music for America, chaired the national committee of the Ford Made in America commissioning project (In 2008, the RCO gave the world premiere of Pulitzer prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner’s “Chasing Light...”), and has served as a grant panelist for the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Before turning to orchestra management, Scott taught Double Bass, Jazz Survey, Music Appreciation, Music Fundamentals, and World Music at the University of Nevada. He writes a monthly blog for PBS Reno, and for a decade contributed a monthly column to the Reno Gazette-Journal. He authored the entry about Reno for the Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition.
Hailing from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Scott holds a Bachelor of Musical Arts degree from Pacific Lutheran University and a Master of Music degree from the University of Nevada. He has an extensive recording collection, is a founding member of the Single Malt Scotch Tasters of Reno, has walked Coast-to-Coast across England, captains a team during the annual 178-mile Reno-Tahoe Odyssey relay race, and is a lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fan. He is married with four adult stepdaughters and three grandchildren.