Scott Wagstaff

Scott Wagstaff has been a music educator for 29 years, serving the last 18 as the beginning band director at Hilda Walker Intermediate School in Tinley Park, Illinois. He began playing trumpet at age 10 in his local elementary school in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. After graduating from Wheeling High School in Wheeling, Illinois in 1975, Scott attended Northern Illinois University where he studied trumpet with Ron Modell and performed with the award winning NIU Jazz Ensemble. After graduating from NIU with a bachelor’s degree in music education, he was invited to join the trumpet section of the world famous Woody Herman Orchestra. From 1981 through 1986 Scott traveled across the United States, Europe and Japan with the “”Young Thundering Herd”” as the band was known at the time. After leaving the Woody Herman band, he moved back to the Chicago area and continued his career as a free-lance musician before entering into a career as a music educator.

For the past 29 years he has worked full time with fifth through eighth grade band students.