Music, Department of

Bob Marley is quoted as saying, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Billy Joel said, “Music in itself is healing.” And Jimi Hendrix was certain, “If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”At Georgia College & State University, 34 undergraduates and 14 graduate students study this phenomenon and bring its healing technique into the community. Students work with elderly adults in five assistant living facilities...

By J. Cale StricklandDr. Evren Kutlay, this semester’s Martha Daniel Newell Visiting Scholar, gave a lecture-performance on the intersection between the arts and geopolitics, “Cultural Diplomacy and Music,” earlier this month.Kutlay performed 12 pieces in total, seven solo and five alongside students, staff and faculty from the Department of Music.She says the lecture-performance, which focused on the relationship between Eastern music and international relations, was the result of...

Afew years ago, if you’d told Army veteran and former microbiologist Arron Holland that he would be studying music education at Georgia College & State University, he probably would have laughed.   After 14 years in the military and an injury in Iraq—coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic—Arron was pushed out of the only field he’d known. And changed the trajectory of his life.  “Coming to campus was like I was colorblind and seeing through corrective lenses for the first time,” Arron...

Story developed by University Communications. Bryan Hall, assistant professor of music and director of orchestras at Georgia College & State University (GCSU) attended a well-known and highly-regarded conductor training program in January—and walked away with an award for best conductorship. “I wasn’t focused on the competition at all, just focused on making myself better,” said Hall, who was hired in 2022 to teach upper strings at Georgia College. “I approached it through the lens...

Story developed by University Communications. Photo Credit: Nicole Young. Caroline Miller from Suwanee, Georgia is completing her Master of Music Therapy this December. The double Bobcat worked in the Georgia College & State University (GCSU) Music Therapy Clinic as a graduate assistant since graduating with her Bachelor’s of Music Therapy in December 2020.  While there, she’s served about 80 children a week in eight special education classrooms, as well as individual clients. “I’ve...

Rafal remembers the feeling. In early 2020, Rafal, who goes by just his surname, was in the audience at an honors conference hearing his composition for saxophone quartet played by an ensemble of professional musicians. It was a turning point. “It felt like that was one of the first times that one of my pieces was actually performed,” he said. “I felt like a real composer—I felt like I had just done something in real life rather than just pretending.” But it might not have played out...

Georgia College & State University students are creating unique music and sharing it with the world. Student chamber ensemble, the Imposter Trio, and saxophonist Savannah McDowell represented Georgia College in performances at the American Single Reed Summit (ASRS) this month in Columbia, South Carolina. The American Single Reed Summit is a national conference focusing on clarinet and saxophone. The summit brings professional and student musicians together to develop connections between...

Paul McCartney once said: “I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity … to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.” That about sums up what Georgia College & State University’s annual “High School Choral Day” is all about: fellowship, collaboration, good music—and a little recruitment too. “It started off as an effort to get high school singers...