Applied Music is an art.
JBU helps you develop your craft.
In the applied music major, you will learn the history of musical development as you begin to cultivate your own style. At JBU you can choose between organ, piano or voice as your specialization and practice to perfection in one of the many practice rooms available for students. You will integrate your art with your faith as you prepare for the next step.
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Find out what our students and professors have to say about studying Applied Music at JBU.
Enjoy Fantastic Facilities
Students have access to labs, practice rooms, and performance areas in the Berry Performing Arts Center.
Make Great Music
Join one of the many JBU music groups on campus: Cathedral Choir, Chamber Orchestra, Red Steps, Women’s Chorus, Jazz Ensemble, or a chapel band.
Study Under Professionals
In addition to the veteran professors who are incredibly talented musicians, every semester JBU invites various professional musicians to perform and conduct master classes with the students
Gain Performance Experience
JBU music students have innumerable opportunities to perform in recitals, master classes, musicals, concerts, competitions, and fun campus activities.
Compete in Singing Competitions
Voice majors compete annually and advance to the finals at the state competition sponsored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).
Music Teaching
Private schools, private companies, public companies, elementary and secondary schools, and colleges all look for quality music training.
Recording Industry
Careers in the recording industry can look like administrative work, promotion, research, budgeting, mastering music, producing music, packaging recording, sales, or merchandising. There are also many jobs involving contracts and other legal issues. Experience or training in business is a great combination for a career in the recording industry.
Music Industry
Conducting usually requires an advanced degree in music. Responsibilities can range from rehearsing and scheduling to raising funds for performances.
Performance Industry
Typically, performance careers start locally. Theaters, community colleges, restaurants, and other entertainment organizations are always looking for quality performers.
Music Director
Many churches or para-churches look for music directors for their youth and congregation.
Music Software Programmer
These individuals can work in private companies, music companies or larger media companies in producing unique music software programming. Training and knowledge in music as well as computer programming is required.
Accompanist
Many production companies, colleges, universities, churches, theaters, and record companies look for talented accompanists.
Meet Our Applied Music Professors
Connor Davis
Assistant Professor of Music
Dr. Connor Davis serves as Assistant Professor of Music at John Brown University where he oversees the music theory, musicianship, and music history sequences. He also directs the jazz combo and pep band as well as teaches private lessons in piano, improvisation, and composition. He recently completed a Ph.D. in Music Theory at Louisiana State University. His dissertation—“Thelonious Monk’s Prototypical Style: Close and Distant Readings of Jazz Stylings”—harnesses the power of machine learning to identify and define stylistic traits within the jazz genre and extrapolate defining characteristics of significant performers and performances, namely Thelonious Monk.
Dr. Davis' research interests include normativity in music, corpus studies, philosophy, empirical aesthetics, and the computational analysis of jazz performance practice and pedagogy. He has presented nationally and internationally on the aforementioned topics and has publications in The Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.
Dr. Davis enjoys endurance sports, coffee, spending time with students, and working together with his wife on their fixer-upper.
Paul Whitley
Associate Professor of Music (Piano)
Dr. Paul Whitley received his Doctor of Music degree from Northwestern University, where he was a student of Alan Chow. He also holds degrees from Wheaton Conservatory and New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied piano with Dr. William Phemister and Gabriel Chodos respectively.
Dr. Whitley is currently Assistant Professor of Music at JBU, and he also enjoys teaching private piano lessons in JBU's Community Arts Academy. He has been soloist with several orchestras and ensembles (including Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, NU Saxophone Ensemble, Wheaton College Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra), and has won various competitions (including the Thaivu-Isaac Competition, the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation of Chicago Competition, and Illinois State MTNA Piano Competition.)
Before coming to Arkansas, Dr. Whitley held teaching positions at Wheaton Conservatory of Music and Northwestern College in Iowa.
Liesl Dromi
Assistant Professor of Music (voice)
Liesl M. Dromi, lyric coloratura soprano, holds a Master of Music in Vocal Pedagogy from Belmont University and a Bachelor of Arts in Music (vocal performance) from John Brown University.
Dromi studied voice with Dr. Kristi Whitten, Paul Smith and Dr. Yvonne Dechance. She studied vocal pedagogy and voice science with Dr. Jennifer Coleman (Belmont University) and Jennifer Muckala, M.A., CCC-SLP (Vanderbilt Voice Center). Additionally, she has completed and received certification in Somatic Voicework™: The LoVetri Method, the contemporary vocal pedagogy method developed by master teacher Jeannette LoVetri.
As a voice educator, Dromi has over 10 years of experience training singers of all ages and backgrounds in classical, musical theatre and commercial music styles. She has been on faculty at John Brown University since 2014, where she enjoys teaching a robust applied voice studio, diction, vocal pedagogy, commercial voice and musical theatre workshop. Dromi’s voice students are regularly finalists in regional and national competitions.
