About Scott Foglesong

I never started out to be such a jack of all trades, musically speaking. In fact, my horizons were pretty much limited to the piano—and even there, I was narrow and unsophisticated. But time went by. I acquired a penchant for record collecting, even as a teenager. And my favorite recordings were orchestral, not piano. 

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Perhaps I lurched my way into the career that eventually evolved. I taught piano for the longest time, but I also started teaching eartraining and music theory early on. Then an interesting break came when I started lecturing at UC Berkeley, in a one-semester class that covered the sum total of Western music in a mere 15 weeks. That took focus. But I learned a lot about presenting music to people who didn't really know much about it. I taught that class for 30 years until I decided to let it go the year after the Covid pandemic.

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Along the way I became a program annotator, first for the San Francisco Symphony, and then for a plethora of venues that nowadays includes the Grand Teton Music Festival, Oregon Symphony, California Symphony, Maestro Foundation, and others. I give pre-concert talks for both the San Francisco Symphony and the California Symphony.

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I started teaching at USF's wonderful Fromm Institute about 15 years ago. Every year I teach two classes on subjects in music that intrigue me, be it individual composers such as Beethoven or Brahms, schools of composition such as the Viennese Classical, or specific genres such as string music, symphonies, concertos, or the like. It's wonderful fun for me and I think has proven useful for the many students who have taken my classes over the years. 

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And I continue to teach eartraining and music theory and music literature. 

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I keep plenty busy, in other words. Maybe I'll retire at some point. But not today.