Scott Lagraff

Dr. Scott LaGraff, professor of voice, is a graduate of the Tri-Cities Opera Resident Artist Training Program in Binghamton, New York, where he sang the title roles in “Don Giovanni" and "Le Nozze di Figaro," the villains in "Les Contes d’Hoffmann" and Capulet in "Roméo et Juliette," among others, and was a recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant. He has appeared multiple times with Opera East Texas in such roles as Schaunard in "La Bohème" and Dick Deadeye in "H.M.S. Pinafore," and also has sung roles with the Syracuse, Tulsa, Pensacola and Westchester Hudson opera companies.

A selected list of his concert engagements includes appearances as the baritone soloist in Beethoven's "Symphony No. 9" and Brahms “Requiem" with the East Texas Symphony Orchestra, as well as performances of:

• Fauré "Requiem" and Handel’s "Messiah" with the Syracuse Symphony
• "Dvořak Te Deum" with the Baton Rouge Symphony
• Mozart "Mass in C Minor" with the Canterbury Choral Society in Oklahoma City
• "Bruckner Te Deum at Carnegie Hall
• and solo appearances with the Longview Symphony, the Ocean City Pops, the Binghamton Pops, the Orchestra of the Pines and the Syracuse Oratorio Society.

LaGraff is an advocate of contemporary American song, and his first CD, "Songs by Stephen Lias, Michael Patterson and Lee Hoiby," was released by Centaur Records in 2009. A second CD, entitled "Incline Thine Ear and Other Sacred Songs," was released in 2017, also with Centaur. In addition to being the first to record several of Lee Hoiby's pieces, he also gave the first performances of Hoiby's "Chants d’Exil" and the solo arrangement of "Last Letter Home," and commissioned and premiered Stephen Lias’s "Songs of a Sourdough."

He created a video series on YouTube, entitled All-State Diction Tips, which have proven to be extremely popular with high school choir directors and students as they prepare for All-State Choir auditions.

LaGraff's students have sung with professional opera companies and young artist programs, in international and domestic summer programs, gained admission to prestigious graduate schools and are successful music teachers in Texas schools.

The Athens, Ohio, native received his Bachelor of Music from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music from the State University of New York at Binghamton and his Doctor of Musical Arts from Louisiana State University.

Prior to joining the SFA faculty in 2004, he held teaching positions at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.