"Ethnomusicologist and Musician Scott Ph.D. ’97 Honored in India" from News At Wesleyan

by Cynthia Rockwell • January 23, 2012

Ethnomusicologist and musician Stan Scott Ph.D. ’97, was honored by the Indian Musicological Society and the Mumbai Music Forum with their “Award for Contribution to the Cause of Indian Music by an Overseas-Resident Personality.” He was presented the award in absentia at the Jan. 21 Sangeet Research Academy conference held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and he will receive the presentation personally in March, when he’ll be performing in Delhi and Mumbai. 

Scott, a private lessons teacher in the Music Department, teaches banjo, mandolin and guitar. 

Also writer, Scott is the co-author of two ethnomusicology textbooks:  Music in Ireland:  Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Exploring the World of Music (Kendall Hunt, 1998). He is the director of the Rangila School of Music in Connecticut and has also taught classes at Yale, Wesleyan and Southern Connecticut State universities. 

Of his singing, the former President of India, the late K. R. Narayanan, wrote: “It was an incredible achievement for you to have mastered Hindustani classical music and sung it with such effortless ease. You have not only learnt the technique but captured the spirit of Indian classical music…I would consider this an important contribution to the promotion of understanding between the Indian and the American peoples.” 

Scott’s most recent album is The Weaver’s Song: Bhajans of North India (Rangila World Music, 2011), a cross-cultural collaboration between Indian and American musicians, presenting repertoire from a six-century range in a contemporary improvisational format.  It features Indian classical and devotional music performed in the style of a small chamber ensemble, with rich interaction between virtuoso soloists, tightly woven ensemble playing, and exquisite vocal choruses.