Scott Slapin was born into a family of musicians in 1974 and studied composition with Richard Lane. He has written nine albums of chamber music for strings with performances by the Wistaria String Quartet, the Penn State Viola Ensemble, the American Viola Quartet, and the Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo. A former fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California, Scott has been commissioned by the Primrose International Viola Competition and the American Viola Society, and he served as committee member, judge, and performer for the inaugural Maurice Gardner Composition Competition. His music can be heard in the final scenes of the award-winning docudrama Secret Life, Secret Death and has been performed widely in concert halls throughout the world.

Scott studied violin/viola with Barbara Barstow, Sally Peck, and Emanuel Vardi, and at eighteen was one of the youngest graduates of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He is a featured viola soloist on dozens of premiere recordings, and his playing has received critical acclaim in the American Record Guide, Fanfare, Mundo Clásico, Musical Opinion, and Strad. Scott is the first person to have recorded the complete cycle of J.S. Bach's Sonatas and Partitas on viola, and he can be heard playing solo Bach, Paganini Caprices, and his own compositions on various soundtracks for film and TV. He has given countless recitals and premiered solo works in such venues as Carnegie's Weill Hall and at international viola congresses. He was the solo violist in the New York City production of Orpheus In Love and gained orchestral experience playing in the Cincinnati and São Paulo Symphonies, among others. Scott and his wife, violist Tanya Solomon, met touring with the Philadelphia Virtuosi and have been performing as the award-winning Slapin-Solomon Viola Duo for more than twenty years. They make their home in western Massachusetts, where they teach privately.