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Jean Martin-Williams & James Naigus
Dr. Jean Martin-Williams is the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Horn in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. In 2023 she also received the award “University Professor” at UGA. Her degrees are from the Manhattan School of Music, where she was the first brass player to receive the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. These “firsts” continued, as she was the first female brass player invited to join the New York Pops Orchestra, the first female tenure-track instrumentalist hired at the University of Georgia, and the first female invited to the board of the International Horn Competition of America.
Dr. Martin-Williams has performed in a variety of settings, from soap operas to the Metropolitan Opera, from the New York City Ballet to Broadway shows, from a Mozart Concerto in Russia to the national anthem at a NY Mets game. Her conference presentations and performances have taken her to Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Russia. Her discography includes the New York Chamber Symphony, the New York Pops, the Georgia Woodwind Quintet and the Atlanta Symphony, including the ASO’s GRAMMY-award winning recording of the Berlioz Requiem. She hosted the symposium of the International Horn Society (1999) and this is her fourth time hosting the Southeast Horn Workshop! Each spring she presents two invited seminars at the Juilliard School of Music on the topic of the Artist/Teacher at a university. From 2006–2017 she directed the Lilly Teaching Fellows program at UGA and has thus mentored well over one hundred Assistant Professors from all departments on campus.
Dr. Martin-Williams is an avid proponent of bringing research into the teaching studio. Graduates of the UGA Horn Studio are now in tenure-track positions, in the D.C. military bands, in symphony orchestras, and active as music therapists and music educators.
Dr. James Naigus is Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Georgia and hornist with the Georgia Brass Quintet. He is co-founder of the Cor Moto Horn Duo with Dr. Drew Phillips, and co-editor/contributor of the Creative Hornist and Technique Tips columns in The Horn Call, the journal of the International Horn Society. He has played with the Atlanta Symphony, Wichita Symphony, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, Orchestra Iowa, Brevard Symphony, Gainesville Chamber Orchestra, Valdosta Symphony, and Ocala Symphony orchestras. In 2019 he was selected to perform with the WCIT World Orchestra in Yerevan, Armenia. He has toured Europe in 2017 & 2014 and South America in 2011 as a member of the American Chamber Winds. He has also performed on recitals at the MidNorth, Midwest, Midsouth and Southeast Horn Workshops, as well as the 2018, 2015 and 2013 International Horn Symposiums.
Naigus has been a member of the faculty and staff at the prestigious Kendall Betts Horn Camp for the last six years, which included designing and teaching an aural harmony music theory course. Additional teaching interests include music theory, concert and commercial composition, film music, and technology.
Naigus’ compositions have been performed throughout the United States and beyond, with enthusiastic reception and rave review. In 2013 he was the Composer-in-Residence at the Southeast Horn Workshop in Richmond, Virginia. In 2009 he was awarded an honorable mention award in the International Horn Society Composition Contest. He has written commercial compositions for clients such as Google, University of Michigan, University of Florida, and University of Iowa. He currently has over sixty works published by RM Williams Publishing, Veritas Musica Publishing, and self published. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa (DMA) studying with Jeffrey Agrell, studied horn and composition with Paul Basler at the University of Florida during his masters degree, and while attending the University of Michigan for his undergraduate degree studied with Sören Hermansson, Bryan Kennedy, and Adam Unsworth. Prior appointments include the University of Central Missouri and the University of Iowa.
UGA Horn Studio
The University of Georgia Horn Studio prides itself on being a place where all students can find their own niches. Students are encouraged to explore their own creativity and interests. These creative endeavors have taken form in a variety of ways including arrangements, compositions, publications, inter-disciplinary projects and visits abroad. At least once a semester the horn studio gets together to have a meal and celebrate being horn players. The horn studio holds a number of recitals every year: these include a chamber recital, a horn choir recital and various other studio recitals. Our studio is very supportive of each other and can be found in the audience whenever a horn player is performing.
University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music
Home to approximately six hundred students and a faculty of sixty-five, the Hodgson School offers a wide variety of degree programs from baccalaureate through doctoral levels, as well as many opportunities for all UGA students to participate in ensembles and academic classes. Each year the School hosts nearly 350 public performances.
As one of the rising national leaders in music schools today, the Hodgson School boasts facilities among the finest in the country. The Performing and Visual Arts Complex—which includes the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, Performing Arts Center, Georgia Art Museum, and Lamar Dodd School of Art—is located on UGA’s East Campus and reflects the university’s long-term commitment to the arts. The Performing Arts Center draws world-class artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Sir James Galway, and Wynton Marsalis, as well as major international orchestras, including a twice-yearly residency of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
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