SCOTT SHACHTER
Since early 2017 Scott Shachter has been onstage as a regular in the show Chicago. He has played his flutes, clarinets and saxophones on Broadway since 1988, and has performed in over seventy shows, including Cats (2016-2017, 1992-2000), Kinky Boots, On The Town (2014-2015 and 1996), Pippin, Annie, Cinderella, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Porgy and Bess, Billy Elliot, How to Succeed in Business, Sister Act, Memphis, Phantom, Promises/Promises, La Cage Aux Folles, Guys and Dolls (starring Oliver Platt), Gypsy (starring Patti Lupone), Curtains, The Color Purple, A Chorus Line, 42nd Street, Promises Promises, White Christmas, Pal Joey, The Producers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Drowsy Chaperone, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Oklahoma, Beauty and the Beast, Cabaret, Kiss Me Kate, Music Man, Follies, Miss Saigon, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Fosse, Sound of Music, Titanic, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sunset Boulevard, Victor/Victoria, Showboat, Crazy for You, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Scott is on the Broadway cast albums for Gypsy (Patti Lupone), How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Glorious Ones, Assassins, High Society, State Fairand Romance/Romance. He can also be heard on all the Gotham Wind Symphony recordings (see resume), as Reed 1 on Sutton Foster’s album Wish (see resume), and playing solo reeds for folksinger David Roth’s album Rising in Love as well as three of his other albums (resume). Scott has also recorded with folksinger comedian Dean Friedman: Squirrels in the Attic, and with the contemporary wind ensemble Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and the jazz band Adventures in Jazz Orchestra. Scott is composing and orchestrating his own CD on as many as thirteen instruments. Listen to four of his compositions on the Music page.
Playing baritone sax in Chicago, the Musical.
Scott has also toured with the Broadway national companies of Starlight Express, Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Cats, as well as on cruise ship big bands throughout the Caribbean.
He grew up in Philadelphia, playing saxophones in R&B bands while studying with the jazz master Larry McKenna. He studied clarinet with Ron Reuben, and later, flute with Kenneth Scutt, each of the Philadelphia Orchestra. As lead alto with the Temple University jazz band, he was featured in concerts with Dizzy Gillespie and Phil Woods. He graduated Temple with a Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude. He then went to Los Angeles, to California State University, Northridge, where he studied saxophone with Doug Masek, and played lead alto in the “A Band” under the direction of Joel Leach, winning first prize in the Berkeley Jazz Festival (1982). He graduated CSUN with a Master of Arts, summa cum laude. In New York, Scott studied flute with Harvey Estrin, Keith Underwood and Andrew Sterman.
He studied mouthpiece refacing with Everett Matson, and learned it was possible to “sculpt” a particular sound and response out of a mouthpiece. He quickly developed his own technique and attracted a renowned clientele, including Michael Brecker, Gerry Niewood, Charles McPherson, Walt Weiskopf, Bobby Malach, Ted Nash, and Bobby Porcelli (See Mouthpiece Customizing page).
Behind comedian Alan King, on the Fairwind Cruise Line of Princess Cruises, floating somewhere in the Caribbean.
On the freezing set of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, with John Romeri and Lynn Cohen's oboe.
Through it all Scott has also maintained a passion for writing—with a comic edge. Outside In, his first novel, was inspired by his encounters with gloriously talented performers who couldn't relate to other humans. This novel, a jazz fiction/speculative fiction/comedy, puts the reader inside the wacky life of a working class musician, and explores the “crazy genius” in us all. Outside In was a finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, gained Honorable Mention in the 2011 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest and reached the quarterfinals in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.
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