Scott Perkins
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Justin Scott Perkins (born June 25, 1980) is an international prize-winning composer of vocal music, an award-winning scholar, and a professor at California State University, Sacramento.[1]
Until 2020, Perkins wrote a balance of sacred and secular music. Notable works include A Word Out of The Sea (2003, winner of a BMI Student Composer Award[2]), The Stolen Child (2006), Charon (2012; libretto by Nat Cassidy; commissioned by the Kennedy Center and Washington National Opera[3]), and A New England Requiem (2016).[4]
Since 2020, Perkins's music has been mostly extended, secular, choral works that support and illuminate the words of contemporary authors on themes of social justice, environmentalism, and mental health. His style can be characterized by its lyricism, modal influences, tonal centricity, and metric flexibility. Benjamin Britten, Thomas Tallis, Sigur Rós, Arvo Pärt, and Samuel Barber have influenced the techniques and sound of some of his music.[5] Notable works include Alive Poems (2020) and A Map to the Next World (2023).
Perkins grew up in Bristol, Connecticut. He began composing at the age of five, studied composition at The Hartt School Community Division at age twelve, and won his first competition at 14, resulting in a premiere by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He graduated from Bristol Central High School in 1998.
Perkins studied music theory and composition with Martin Amlin, Richard Cornell, Charles Fussell, and Marjorie Merryman at the Boston University College of Fine Arts. He minored in vocal performance; his voice teachers were William Hite and Joy McIntyre. He won several departmental awards and prizes, and he graduated with highest honors in 2002. He pursued graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, earning master's degrees in Music Theory Pedagogy and Music Theory, and a PhD in Composition. His composition teachers were Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez.[6]
