Dr. Scott Conklin Bio

Scott ConklinScott Conklin regularly appears as a recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and teaching clinician throughout the United States and abroad, and he is a violin professor at The University of Iowa School of Music and a violin teacher at the Preucil School of Music in Iowa City, Iowa. Conklin has performed as a soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Louisville, Nashville, and Berlin Symphony Orchestras. He is the 2008 Iowa String Teachers Association Leopold LaFosse Studio Teacher of the Year and was named a "Rising Star" and featured artist at the 2004 Music Teachers National Association Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.

Albany Records released Conklin's album of new American contemporary compositions with pianist Alan Huckleberry on September 1, 2009.  Violinguistics American Voices features works by Kevin Beavers, William Bolcom, Ching-chu Hu, Joel Puckett, Kevin Puts, and Bright Sheng. Conklin's recording of A Tempered Wish for Solo Violin and Chamber Orchestra (2003) by Ching-chu Hu was released on the album Vive Concertante! on Albany Records. He has also recorded works by Luke Dahn, Franco Donatoni, and Jeremy Dale Roberts on the same record label. In 2009, Ching-chu Hu wrote and dedicated a new work to Conklin called The Hope Moment for Violin and Piano (2009). Composer Joel Puckett of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University also expanded his BMI award-winning composition Colloquial Threads for Violin and Piano (2003) into a new four-movement violin concerto called Southern Comforts for violin, orchestral winds, bass, piano, and percussion (2008). Both works were written for and dedicated to Conklin. Recently, Conklin appeared on a concert tour of Germany with pianist Alan Huckleberry, and he also repeatedly performed the complete violin and piano works by Brahms over successive nights with pianist Uriel Tsachor. The latter project included Brahms's very own violin and piano transcriptions of the Op. 120 Sonatas Numbers 1 and 2 for clarinet/viola and piano.

Conklin is a former faculty member of The University of Texas at Arlington, and he also taught on several occasions as a substitute violin professor at The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music.  In summer months, Conklin has served and/or continues to serve on faculty at The University of Iowa All-State Camp, Sound Encounters (Kansas), American Suzuki Institute (Stevens Point, Wisconsin), Ottawa Suzuki Institute Mid-Southwest and Young Artist Camp (Kansas), DFW WOW (Texas), and the Interlochen Arts Camp All-State Division (Michigan) among many others. During the academic year, Conklin teaches at many clinics, conferences, workshops, and educational settings throughout the country and serves on the Editorial Board of the American Music Teacher Magazine. Conklin also holds the honorary distinction of being a "Kentucky Colonel," a title given to him by Governor Wallace G. Wilkinson.

During his youth, Conklin was a student of Carol Dallinger, Violin Professor at the University of Evansville (IN). He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied violin with David Updegraff and chamber music with Peter Salaff. Conklin also earned Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees from The University of Michigan School of Music as a student of Paul Kantor.