Associate Dean, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences As Associate Dean, Dr. Jean Martin-Williams leads the College’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion endeavors. She is also the liaison for eight units: African American Studies, Art, Dance, English, Music, Sociology, Theater/Film Studies and Womens Studies and has additional responsibilities in the areas of curriculum and instruction. Dr. Jean Martin-Williams is also the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Horn in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. In 2023 she was named 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’ research focus is horn performance and pedagogy. She 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 hosted the Southeast Horn Workshop three times. 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. For the past ten years she has been particularly intentional in mentoring and supporting female brass students at UGA and female horn professors nationally. 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.
