Dr. Don R. Campbell

GAMAC Chorale

Don Campbell is Professor Emeritus of Music, former Director of Choral Activities after 25 years there, and former Music Department Coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University in Central, South Carolina. Prior to his appointment to SWU in 1998, he taught high school vocal music for 21 years—20 of those years at Redwood High School in Visalia, California—building the program to 300 students in five choirs. Dr. Campbell received his Bachelor of Arts degree in music education from California State University, Fullerton, his Master of Arts degree in choral conducting from California State University, Fresno, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from Arizona State University. His mentors include David Thorsen, Howard Swan, John Cooksey, Greg Lyne, David Stocker, and many others. His teaching experience includes choral and instrumental conducting, vocal pedagogy, voice instruction for middle school voices through senior voices, music theory, music history, elementary and secondary music education.

In demand as a choral clinician, Dr. Campbell has traveled to seventeen states as well as Scotland, The Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, and British Columbia and Ontario, Canada to conduct choirs and festival choruses and present choral clinics. He has conducting students in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. Every year he conducts the South Carolina Music Educators Association’s Western Region Honor Choir and for many years also conducted the Upper Region and Central Region Honor Choirs. His choirs have performed at conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and Music Educators National Conference. He is the founder and host of five festivals for local school and church choirs at Southern Wesleyan University: Upstate Intercollegiate Choral Invitational Festival for college choirs, SWUFest for high school choirs (which has grown so much in popularity that it has had to be split into two different days, SWUFest Too for middle school choirs, and Musica Ecclesia for church choirs.

In addition to the many eclectic programs he has directed in his forty-six years of work, he has conducted choral/orchestral works including Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, F.J. Haydn’s Harmoniemesse, Creation Mass, and Lord Nelson Mass, Howard Hanson’s Song of Democracy, Beethoven’s, Mass in C major and the choral movement of the Ninth Symphony, Haydn’s Te Deum, Brahms’ Schicksalslied and an orchestrated version of the Liebeslieder Waltzer, Cherubini’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’ A German Requiem, Duruflé’s Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, Rutter’s Requiem and Gloria, Mozart’s Requiem, Schubert’s Masses in G and B flat and Schubert’s Magnificat, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art, Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom and Frostiana, G.P. Pergolesi’s Magnificat and P.D.Q Bach’s The Seasonings. He has had post-doctoral coaching in orchestral conducting as a Conducting Fellow at the Conductors Institute of South Carolina with Donald Portnoy, Paul Vermel, Peter Jaffe, Maurice Peress, Manuel Alvarez, Victoria Bond, Samuel Jones, and John Fitz Rogers.

Dr. Campbell is currently the conductor of the Chorale of the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium (GAMAC), a fine civic chorale in Anderson, South Carolina. As a barbershopper, he has directed Visalia, California’s Mighty Oak Chorus, Hanford, California’s Kingsmen Chorus, and Spartanburg, South Carolina’s Palmetto Statesmen Chorus and has been on the international faculty of Harmony University for the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) for twenty-six years and has been the Dean of the Directors College of BHS’s Harmony University since 2015. He is also a member of American Choral Directors Association, South Carolina American Choral Directors Association, National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Barbershop Harmony Society, and a career-long member of Music Educators National Conference. His other affiliations are with Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (Professional Music Fraternity), Phi Kappa Phi (Honorary Scholastic Society), and Pi Kappa Lambda (Honorary Music Scholastic Society).

As a church musician, Dr. Campbell has directed music at several churches in California and South Carolina including his current position as Director of Music at Trinity United Methodist Church (TUMC) in Anderson, South Carolina. He has also had lead roles in community theatre productions of Man of La Mancha and Fiddler on the Roof. He is recipient of the first Ken Dickens Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2003 at Southern Wesleyan University and SWU’s Faculty Member of the Year for 2003-4. Additional honors include having been president of the South Carolina American Choral Directors Association, being named Dean of the Directing College of Harmony University, posting a conducting video on YouTube called “Directors Stop Talking,” and contributing to the book, Visions of Excellence: A Dialog with the Finest Directors from the Barbershop Harmony Society.

In his “re-tread-ment,” Dr. Campbell will continue to serve the cause of choral music and music education through his work with the GAMAC Chorale, BHS, TUMC, school and festival choirs, and private lessons in conducting and voice. He will also enjoy having more time to catch up on projects around the house and spending time with his wife since 1975, Karen, who sings soprano in the Chorale.

Dr. Andrew Pettus

Anderson Symphony Orchestra

Dr. Andrew Pettus holds two Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Alabama in music education and pure mathematics, a Master of Music degree from the University of Miami in music education with emphasis in conducting, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Minnesota in conducting.  During his time at the University of Alabama, he served as drum major of the Million Dollar Marching Band for four years while arranging and writing drill for the band as well. He served as the Director of Bands at Hillcrest High School in Tuscaloosa, AL for six years during which his bands performed at the Alabama Music Educators' Conference, the Music for All National Concert Festival in Indianapolis, IN, the Midwest Clinic in Chicago, IL, the CBDNA & NBA Southern Division Conference in Oxford, MS, and a 2-week tour of China by invitation through the US-China Cultural Exchange. Also during his time in Tuscaloosa, he served as the Director of the Tuscaloosa Youth Orchestra and the Orchestra Director of First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa. Dr. Pettus currently resides in Anderson, SC where he holds the position of Director of Instrumental Music at the South Carolina School of the Arts at Anderson University. When not involved in some musical activity, Dr. Pettus is an avid tennis player. He and his wife, Ashli, are the proud parents of two beautiful children.
 

Ms. Lauren Owens

Anderson Children’s Choir

A dynamic and passionate music educator, Lauren Owens has over a decade of experience teaching young singers of all ages throughout South Carolina and New Jersey. She currently serves as Choral Director for Belton and Honea Path Middle Schools in Anderson County School District 2 where she has previously directed the district-wide Children’s Chorus Clinic. Elsewhere in South Carolina, she is credited with rebuilding the choral music program for Chesterfield County Schools where she worked with students from high schools in Chesterfield and Cheraw, SC. Her work prior to moving south includes teaching elementary general and vocal music to K-6 grade students at the Passaic Arts & Sciences Charter School and Sandshore School in Passaic and Budd Lake, New Jersey.

In addition to teaching, Lauren is an active member of the South Carolina Music Educators Association (SCMEA) and the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) for which she served as speaker for the 2022 Spring ACDA Conference.

Lauren serves as Director of Music at Young Memorial Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church in Anderson.

She earned a bachelors in Music Education from Rutgers University as well as a masters in Music Education from Boston University.

Mr. Alan Nowell

The Electric City Big Band

A native of Anderson, Alan Nowell graduated from Westside High School, then received his A.A. degree in Musical Performance from Anderson College in 1976.  He continued his education at Newberry College where he studied clarinet with Dr. John Wagnerand graduated Cum Laude in 1978 with a BA in Music Education.  He received a Masters in Music Education from Anderson University in 2013.  

After graduation from Newberry, he performed with the musical touring group, The Spurrlows, performing throughout the United States, Europe, Scandanavia and South America.  Following a four year road stint with The Spurrlows, Alan soon went back out on the road with the contemporary Christian group Truth, again traveling throughout the US and Brazil as part of World Vision.  His work with Truth led to work as a studio musician in Lynchberg, Va for Dr. Jerry Falwell and the Liberty Broadcasting Network along with Thomas Road Baptist Church ministries, The Old Time Gospel Hour and Liberty University.  

In 1989, he returned to Anderson to accept a position teaching band at McCants Middle School and assisted at T.L. Hanna High School for twenty years.  While at McCants, his band won several achievement awards in addition to placement in Region and All-State bands annually.  He has served as an adjunct faculty member at Anderson University and Southern Wesleyan University teaching woodwinds.  In addition to teaching, he performs as a clarinetist for the GAMAC Chamber Orchestra and as a free lance player in various ensembles.  He has had the opportunity to perform with Sandi Patti, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Chris Vadala, Jon Faddis, The Sammy Kay Band, The Guy Lombardo Orchestra and The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

He and his wife, Bonnie, married in 1986 and have four children.  They live in Anderson.