Dr. Scott E. Woodard was born in Huntington, WV and is proud to be a life-long West Virginian. He is the Music Director of the Butler Philharmonic Orchestra in Hamilton, Ohio, the Founding Music Director of the West Virginia State Philharmonic Orchestra of Charleston, WV, the Principal Guest Conductor of the Rimini Chamber Orchestra in Rimini, Italy, and the former Cover Conductor of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra. His primary teachers were Dr. Leonid Korchmar of the St. Petersburg State Conservatory of Music and the Mariinsky Theatre and Dr. Oleg Proskuryna. Scott is the recipient of First Prizes at the International Conductor’s Workshop Competition (Macon, GA) and the International Academy of Advanced Conducting (St. Petersburg, Russian Federation).
A product of the public schools in Cabell County, Scott picked up the trumpet in the sixth-grade band. He is a proud Son of Marshall, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. During those MU years, Scott began his study of orchestral conducting under the tutelage of Dr. Paul Balshaw. In 2014, he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University, where his dissertation explored the importance of the Leningrad School of conducting and its founder Ilya Musin.
Scott lives in Scott Depot with his wife Nafi, a family physician, and their son, Gabriel, a trumpet player just like his dad! His hobbies include playing horrible golf, cheering on Gabriel at his Winfield Middle School football games, and trying to figure out how to work on his vintage 1970 Volkswagen Beetle.
