Scatterday is an associate professor of music and director of the Cornell wind
ensembles, conducting the university's Symphonic Band, Wind Symphony,
Chamber Winds, Festival Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble and Wind
Ensemble. He joined Cornell in 1989 after receiving a master's degree in trombone
performance from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in conducting from the
University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music.
Selected as chairman by the 20-member music faculty, Scatterday will act as
an administrator, coordinator and representative of the music department to the
College of Arts and Sciences. Although the post
will be demanding, Scatterday brings to it an enthusiasm for Cornell's music
department, a long passion for music and, as a director
of numerous wind ensembles and orchestras that have toured Japan and North
America, extensive experience that has prepared
him as an ambassador for the university.
"One cannot underestimate the importance of music in a liberal arts
education," Scatterday said, expressing his concern
about the rapid rate at which the arts are being challenged and dropped from
educational curriculums across the country.
Cornell offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in music, but the majority
of students who enroll in music department courses or participate in the various
ensembles are non-music majors. Every semester,
about 1,000 students from almost every department enroll in 40 music courses, ranging in
subject from opera to the history of jazz.
"Although we are educating some students who will become professional
musicians, we are, and possibly more significantly, creating future audiences
-- people who will appreciate and support music because they've had a positive
and exciting experience with it here at Cornell," Scatterday said.
Indeed, although Cornell's music department is relatively small, its faculty
feature world-class performers, scholars, composers and conductors who have
won Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim Awards and other prestigious honors. In addition to
the host of stellar professors, the department has what is considered one of the
country's great music libraries. The department
also sponsors and coordinates more than 120 faculty, student and guest recitals each
year and offers students opportunities to participate in 14 department-sponsored and
19 student-sponsored performing groups.
As chairman, Scatterday will continue the music department's strong
commitment to diversity of study. The department
has just hired a musicologist who specializes in rock, pop and women's music, and
Scatterday hopes that next year a jazz specialist will join the faculty. "Students are
becoming more and more interested in how music relates to them," he said. "I think it's
important for us as music educators to draw connections between all types of contemporary music and music of the past."
Cornell is world-renowned for 18th-century music and performance practice,
and Scatterday would like to see such things as electronic and digital music and jazz
included in the areas of expertise of which Cornell can boast.
Another priority for Scatterday is to increase the outreach opportunities for
the department. "We need to keep emphasizing free concerts and make it more
convenient for people to come to them," he said.
A central focus of Scatterday's term as chairman will be raising funds for the
renovation of the music department's home, Lincoln Hall, he said. Formerly the home
of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lincoln Hall, with
below-average acoustics, is not conducive to the
study of music. In addition, many music library holdings are not easily accessible to
students because of lack of space.
"We have such an extraordinary selection of music materials, and yet students
don't have the pleasure of browsing through
them," Scatterday said. "They have to request a
document or recording, which is then retrieved from storage. I can't tell you how many
times I have found interesting scores and texts
right next to the one I was looking for. Open
stacks are essential to our music library."
A fund-raising campaign called the
"Lincoln Hall Renaissance" has raised $7
million toward the $17 million necessary to add a
new 18,640-square-foot wing to Lincoln Hall, as well as to renovate the interior of the
old building. Plans call for a 70 percent increase in space for the music library,
additional rehearsal rooms, instrument storage
space, student practice rooms and even a gamelan world music room. In addition,
acoustical construction systems will provide sound
isolation between music spaces and sound quality within spaces. In the interest of
maintaining musical instruments and preserving the condition of library materials,
temperature and humidity control will be established.
While space may be tight during the construction, Scatterday says that
"students and professors alike share a great sense
of excitement about the project."
Scatterday said construction could begin as soon as next year with
groundbreaking for the new addition as early as April
'98. The project is expected to be completed within his tenure as chairman.
Aside from his Cornell conducting duties, Scatterday remains active as a
performer, playing trombone in local orchestras; arranger, having scored
numerous works for wind; and scholar, having
authored articles on score analysis, performance
practice and conducting.
Though his schedule seems formidable, Scatterday finds time for his other
passion, golf. He said playing golf with faculty
and staff from other departments and getting to know them and their areas of interest
and expertise is very educational for him, and, likewise, when his golf partners come to
his concerts, they receive an education in music. This kind of intellectual and aesthetic
exchange seems to be at the center of Scatterday's enthusiasm for Cornell.
"Unlike teaching at a conservatory where most students and teachers are focused
only on music, at Cornell I interact with people from many different disciplines, and that
is very intellectually fulfilling," he said.