Scott Wheeler was born in Washington DC. He studied at Amherst College, New England Conservatory and Brandeis University, where his principal teachers were Lewis Spratlan and Arthur Berger. At Amherst he also studied piano with Monica Jakuc. Scott pursued further study at the Tanglewood Music Center (with Olivier Messiaen), the Dartington School (with Peter Maxwell Davies) and privately with Virgil Thomson. He teaches at Emerson College in Boston, where he co-directs the BFA program in musical theatre. In 1975 he was a founding member of the new-music ensemble Dinosaur Annex, which he continues to direct and conduct.
Scott’s most recent commission is for an opera for the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theatre. His opera Democracy: An American Comedy, on a libretto of Romulus Linney, was commissioned by the Washington National Opera and premiered by them in January 2005. His first opera, The Construction of Boston, is on the Naxos American Classics series.