Dr. Jean Martin-Williams is the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Horn in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. In 2023, she received the award “University Professor” at UGA. After 11 years directing the Lilly Teaching Fellows, she served eight years as an Associate Dean in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Her portfolio included undergraduate instruction, inclusive excellence, and the departments of Art, Dance, English, Music and Theatre and Film Studies. She is currently the Director of the new CTL Initiative Faculty-to-Faculty (F2F).
Dr. Martin-Williams’ 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 performs multiple concerts each season with The New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. She hosted the symposium of the International Horn Society (1999) and has hosted the Southeast Horn Workshop on four occasions. Each spring she presents two invited seminars at the Juilliard School of Music on the topic of the Artist/Teacher at a university.
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.