Barber is Newell Visiting Scholar at Georgia College

Reprinted with permission from the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts.

Carolyn Barber, the Ron and Carol Cope Professor of Music and Director of Bands in the Glenn Korff School of Music, is the Newell Visiting Scholar this spring at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia.

In addition to her musical training, Barber has developed significant interest and expertise in the creative process as it applies to teaching, learning and the development of artistry.

Barber will teach a course and engage with the campus during the spring semester. Her course, titled “Exercising Creativity: Problem Finding, Flocking, & Aesthetic Intent,” provides students with the techniques and tactics to maximize their creative potential. Core experiences will include multidisciplinary exploration for individuals, in small groups and larger-scale ‘flocking’ exercises rooted in game play. Principal goals are the development of aesthetic intent, mindfulness, question generation and collaborative strategy.

She will also give public presentations on various facets of music and creativity, with special emphasis on what she has called Flock Innovation, or the combination of the creative process with group dynamics. She will teach an interdisciplinary course on creative practice and will, in collaboration with Georgia College students, coach young artists in area schools to develop their creative potential. 

Barber earned her doctor of music in conducting and bachelor of music in horn performance at Northwestern University and her Master’s in horn performance from Yale University. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Band Research, and she is a regular contributor to the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band reference series.

She has been at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Glenn Korff School of Music since 2001.