MACON – Mercer University President William D. Underwood today announced the appointment of Dr. Stanley Roberts, director of choral studies and associate professor of music, as interim dean of the Townsend School of Music, effective immediately.
Stanley Roberts, who joined the Mercer faculty in 1995, succeeds Dr. John N. Roberts, who after a sabbatical will return to full-time teaching in the School of Music in January 2008.
“I am deeply grateful to John Roberts for his leadership of what was the Department of Music in the College of Liberal Arts for nine years and for his service as inaugural dean of the School of Music since it became a freestanding academic unit last July,” said Mercer Provost Horace W. Fleming Jr. “I appreciate Stanley Roberts stepping in to fill this key leadership position on an interim basis while we conduct a national search for the school’s next dean.”
Stanley Roberts directs the Mercer Singers, the University Choir, and the Women’s Chamber Choir, while teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in conducting. He is a frequent guest conductor with the Macon Symphony, and choirs under his direction perform annually with the orchestra. He has been chosen as Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year (2001) and Professor of the Year (2004) by Mercer’s Student Government Association. Highly regarded as a conductor and clinician, he has conducted all-state and honor choirs throughout the United States, as well as workshops in universities, colleges, churches, and schools.
An active church musician for 25 years, he also currently serves as minister of music at Macon’s First Baptist Church of Christ. In 1994 he founded jubilate! — a mass-choir experience for church youth choirs. This group tours each summer and has performed throughout the Southeast and at four national Baptist conventions. He is a member of the Music Educators National Conference and the American Choral Directors Association, having served in numerous leadership capacities for both organizations, and is currently state president for Georgia ACDA.
A 1984 graduate of Mercer, Stanley Roberts also earned a master of church music degree and a doctor of musical arts in conducting degree at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Dr. John Roberts came to Mercer in 1997 as the Callaway Professor and Chair of Music. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, where he was awarded both the Easley-Hardinburgh Prize for the outstanding senior pianist and a performer’s certificate in piano. He received his doctorate in music from Yale University School of Music, where he earned the Ellsworth Grumman Scholarship as an outstanding major in piano and was a winner in the Sprague Hall Competition.
In recent years, he has appeared in concert series in Australia, Canada, the British Isles, Italy, India and the Orient, as well as performing as guest soloist with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra; the Penang Festival Orchestra, Malaysia; the Houston Symphony Orchestra Summer Series; the Lima Symphony Orchestra; and the Orchestra for the North Island, Vancouver Island, Canada.
Among John Roberts’ many competitive honors are top prizes in the Artist Division of the Young Keyboard Artists Association International Competition, the Young Musicians Competition of the Lima Symphony Orchestra and the New York Young Artists in Recital Competition.
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