Thann Scoggin
Grammy Award-winning vocalist Thann Scoggin has thrived on the cutting edge of the contemporary new music landscape as well as the historically-informed performance practices of the nation’s finest early music ensembles. He is particularly interested in the juxtaposition of refined and pristine vocal sounds against the often guttural sounds found in many folk and popular traditions.
Biography
Scoggin is widely recognized for his versatility as a soloist and chamber musician. As a member of experimental vocal band Roomful of Teeth, he has toured internationally, recorded, and premiered countless new works. In particular, he appears prominently on Teeth’s 2023 album Rough Magic, which recently received the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance. Over the last few seasons with Teeth, Scoggin has appeared at the New Zealand and Adelaide Festivals, Musica Festival Strasbourg, Birds of Paradise Festival in Utrecht, the Bergen Festival, Radio France’s Festival Présences, San Francisco Performances, and the Cabrillo Festival, among many others. He sang with Teeth in Peter Sellars’ staging of spectralist composer Claude Vivier’s opera Kopernikus in theaters in Paris, Hanover, and Wellington, New Zealand. Scoggin has performed at the New York City Ballet, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony, and on the opening concert of the New York Philharmonic’s 2022-23 Season.
Scoggin has also performed regularly with The Crossing, Austin’s Conspirare, True Concord in Tucson, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Emmanuel Music, and numerous other ensembles.
As an educator, Scoggin is passionate about using his own unorthodox path to becoming an international touring musician as a jumping-off point for helping students balance traditional techniques and approaches with their own strengths and interests. He has given masterclasses and presentations at such elite and adventurous institutions as Cornell University, Williams College, Vanderbilt University, the University of Michigan, Codarts University for the Arts in Rotterdam, and Toi Whakaari: the New Zealand School for Drama in Wellington, to name just a few. Subjects included singing with amplification, chamber music techniques, ethnomusicology, extended vocal techniques, vocal health, and career strategies for emerging musicians, among many others. For many years, Scoggin maintained a large private voice studio in Central Texas, working with students with an incredibly diverse array of musical interests.
Scoggin received a Bachelor of Music Degree, summa cum laude, in Vocal Performance from the University of North Texas. After graduate studies in Early Music Performance at UNT, he also received a Masters Degree in Library Science with an emphasis on Music Librarianship and Archives.
When he’s not making music, you will most likely find Scoggin outside. An avid hiker and outdoorsman, he has climbed over half of the 100 tallest peaks in Colorado and spends as much time in the mountain west as he can. He is also an electric guitarist and a voracious collector of vinyl records. He is a visiting faculty member at Bennington for Fall 2024.