Composer Scott Wheeler's opera Democracy was commissioned by Plácido Domingo and premiered by Washington National Opera. His first opera, The Construction of Boston, is available on the Naxos American Classics series. His most recent commission is for an opera for the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theatre. Scott is the recipient of the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as well as awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and many others. His music has been performed by conductor Kent Nagano, sopranos Renee Fleming and Lauren Flanigan, baritone Sanford Sylvan, and the orchestras of Buffalo, Minnesota, Indianapolis, Houston and Toledo. His teachers include Virgil Thomson, Lewis Spratlan, Peter Maxwell Davies and Olivier Messiaen. As a conductor, Scott has appeared with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin, the Chamber Ensemble of St. Luke’s in New York, and Dinosaur Annex. He is a founding director of new music ensemble Dinosaur Annex in Boston, where he teaches at Emerson College