Mitch Caudill
The stage of Pikeville High School's 1000-seat auditorium was bare, and the seats were empty when I met Scott Bersaglia there in July. But even with no audience, Bersaglia filled the room when he conducted a few bars of silent music for an imaginary band. His eyes snapped; his hands confidently traced the shape of a hymn tune. I had the somewhat uncomfortable sense that he could hear imaginary music more clearly than I could hear actual sounds.
Bersaglia’s skill as a conductor flows from lifelong discipline, world-class training, and broad experience. But when the Pikeville Independent Schools band director looks back at his musical journey, his own achievements aren’t the focus. Instead, he sees a long line of teachers, mentors and encouragers who made his journey possible.
That’s one reason why, after completing his doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin and earning a coveted spot as assistant director of bands at the University of Michigan, the Hazard native decided to invest in Kentucky students.
A Promise Kept
Bersaglia’s musical journey began with a promise. When he was in the eighth grade, his dad, Nick Bersaglia, offered to buy him a new marimba if he learned to play with four mallets. The elder Bersaglia is a man of his word, his son said, and Scott never questioned that his dad would follow through. Soon, he began taking private percussion lessons during the summers, and he told his teacher about the marimba that could be his.
“He was like, ‘Dude, we have to get four mallets in your hands,’ ” Bersaglia said. “So, he taught me how to hold the grip, and taught me the beginning four-mallet piece that everybody learns. I played it for Dad, and he held to his promise, just like he has with everything he’s done for us.”
For Christmas during his junior year, Bersaglia’s parents gave him a letter confirming the marimba’s purchase. From that moment on, musical excellence became his consuming passion—so much so that his siblings complained. “I practiced all the time, to the point that my brother and sister were like, ‘Mom, can you get him to stop?’ And Dad said, ‘Everybody has to endure this until he’s gone,’ ” Bersaglia said.
A sequence of experiences confirmed Bersaglia’s desire to study music further. After attending the Governor’s School for the Arts and the Kentucky Music Educators Association All-State Band, his trajectory was set.
“It’s all I did. I loved it,” he said. “It was easy for me to make the decision. It all hit at the same time—All-State when I was a junior and getting the marimba the following February after I came back from All-State.”
From his parents’ generosity, Bersaglia learned a lesson that was bigger than music—honoring commitments. “It’s really important with teaching, too, if you think about it,” he said. “That’s the only way you can build trust or talk about truth—if you model it. You can’t be a flake. It’s not an option. And if you are, it makes everything you teach deteriorate. It just doesn’t work.”
From Morehead to Austin
After graduating from Hazard High School, Bersaglia attended Morehead State University. His goal was to study percussion with Dr. Frank Oddis, but he also found other mentors who expanded his understanding of music. Two Morehead professors, Dr. Richard Miles and Dr. Greg Detweiler, took on Bersaglia as a private conducting student, introducing him to the art form that would become a new passion. Yet another teacher, the late Dr. Christopher Gallaher, gave Bersaglia private lessons in conducting.
“These four private teachers all had different strengths, but they all required a certain level [of excellence], and they weren’t going to come down,” Bersaglia said. “Either you rose above it, or you had to pick up a smaller weight. Having that intensive study that was one-on-one as an undergraduate really got me thinking more about the whole of music rather than just percussion or conducting or theory, but how all of those worked together.”
During college, Bersaglia continued to practice the disciplined pursuit of his craft. He had received small scholarships to Morehead but not enough to cover his tuition, and his parents graciously covered the rest. Doing his best, he believed, was the way to honor their generosity.
“The way I could repay them was to be a good steward of time and talents the Lord had given me,” Bersaglia said. “That just set me on a trajectory that put me in that habit. Whether they were going to pay for it or not later on in life, that had already been solidified and instilled within me—to keep pursuing excellence.”
After graduating, Bersaglia taught in public schools for two years. During that time, he kept hearing from friends who had played in the National Intercollegiate Band and sat under Dr. Jerry Junkin, UT’s renowned conductor of bands.
“They all came back to Morehead saying, ‘I’ve never had an experience like this in my life,’ ” Bersaglia said.
Around the same time, he read a book chapter on conducting authored by Junkin. The conductor’s philosophy of music and musicianship captivated Bersaglia. “He was no-nonsense—‘I just want it to sound beautiful,’ ” Bersaglia said. “For Junkin, the way to rehearse is fix whatever doesn’t sound beautiful. And I think that’s the most honest way to go about music. Make it good, make it true, make it beautiful.”
Soon after, Bersaglia attended a conducting symposium that Junkin was directing. The format is common at music schools around the country. Attendees prepare a pre-selected repertoire and, during the symposium, they conduct live musicians at the host university and have their work critiqued by conductors. Bersaglia’s performance drew the organizers’ attention, and he was encouraged to apply. When the acceptance call finally came, he couldn’t believe his ears. “I’m going to turn 23 in May, and here I am, after two years of public-school teaching, going to study with Jerry Junkin,” Bersagalia said. “I thought, ‘This is not happening.’ ”
In the second year of study for his master’s degree at UT, Bersaglia was invited to stay to complete his doctorate. Under the teaching of Junkin, musicologist Kay Knittel, conductor Michael Haithcock and others, Bersaglia’s conducting skills flourished, and his understanding of music deepened. “It’s still kind of hard to believe that I was able to have that experience,” Bersaglia said.
Back to the Mountains
When I met Bersaglia for an interview at Pikeville High School, a handful of half-deflated balloons decorated his desk—leftovers from a surprise birthday party students had thrown for him before the end of the school year, and he’d kept them well into the summer. He joked that he couldn’t dispose of the balloons with school still in session, but I suspected he also was a bit sentimental.
As a teacher, Bersaglia is known for holding his students to high standards. But students say he’s also approachable and always willing to listen. “He’s definitely the best teacher I’ve ever had,” said Brady Runyon, a 2019 PHS graduate who’s now studying sport management at Eastern Kentucky University. “That’s in both life lessons and being a band director. He’s a personable guy. You can come in and just talk any time of day, and he wouldn’t mind to listen and go over experiences he’s had, too.”
Runyon played percussion in Pikeville bands from sixth through 12th grade under Bersaglia’s direction. Even though he’s not studying music in college, he said he learned lessons he’ll carry with him. A two-sport athlete (football and baseball), he said Bersaglia helped him learn time management. Music-wise, Bersaglia’s emphasis on excellent musicianship helped create ensembles that constantly improved.
“Teaching you how to properly use your instrument to get the best sound possible was a big thing with him,” Runyon said. “It made us appreciate it even more. Not to toot my own horn, but we sounded better than most schools in the state.”
Before coming to Pikeville, Bersaglia worked at the University of Michigan, Campbellsville University and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. After the birth of their second daughter, he and his wife, Jennifer, decided it was time to move closer to home. Along with wanting to be closer to family, though, was a longstanding desire to invest in eastern Kentucky.
“Something I really enjoy is seeing students from here, who have just as much talent, blossom,” Bersaglia said. “It’s not that our talent level is less; it’s that our exposure is less. Part of me always had a sense of, ‘I wonder if there’s some way to invest more?’ ”
In addition to directing the school bands, Bersaglia teaches percussion at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonsburg, where Jennifer—another Morehead grad and an accomplished musician—directs a piano and vocal studio. They also collaborate in Sacred Winds, a ministry group that Scott founded during college to bring instrumental music to churches in eastern Kentucky. Together, the Bersaglias love interacting with the region’s incredible talent while offering a hard-earned outside perspective. “One thing I think is really exciting is that we grew up here and understand the culture, but the Lord allowed us to leave and get really skilled and get beat up by world-class musicians,” Bersaglia said. “We can take all that knowledge and translate it into effective means of training. It’s not ability; it’s exposure.”
Whether in Morehead, Austin or Pikeville, the same musical philosophy applies: make it good, make it true, make it beautiful.
“It boils down to that,” he said. “If you focus on those things, you don’t have to keep up with the Joneses—the band down the street. You just teach the beauty of music because of what it is. That takes a lot longer on the front end—we’re talking years. But once it starts to happen, the solid foundation will yield much more.”