{"id":232,"date":"2026-10-07T16:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/academics\/faculty\/bhawkins\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:47:16","slug":"bhawkins","status":"publish","type":"faculty","link":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/experiments\/faculty\/bhawkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawkins, Ben"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben Hawkins has taught at Transylvania since 1985. He conducts the concert band and the chamber orchestra, and supervises the activities of all of the university\u2019s instrumental ensembles, including the jazz ensemble, percussion ensemble, and pep band. He also teaches courses in conducting, music education and music theory, as well as applied French horn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hawkins maintains an active schedule of professional activities beyond the campus. Since 2003, he has served as editor of&nbsp;<em>Bluegrass Music News<\/em>, the official magazine of the Kentucky Music Educators Association. Since 2000, he has traveled to Mexico annually to teach weeklong courses in conducting, instrumental methods and music theory to current and aspiring band directors in that country. Dr. Hawkins has accepted invitations to appear as guest conductor, clinician and conference presenter throughout the United States and in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prior to his tenure at Transylvania, Hawkins taught band in grades 6 &#8211; 12 in the public schools of Virginia and Texas.&nbsp; His principal conducting teachers were James Sudduth, Gordon (Dick) Goodwin and Gustav Meier. He studied horn with Thomas Murray (U.S. Army Band), Frank Brouk (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), and Anthony Brittin (Texas Tech University) and Ron McIlroy, and has had individual lessons with Philip Farkas, Dale Clevenger, Ethel Merker, David Elliott, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A recipient of Transylvania\u2019s Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching, Dr. Hawkins was the 1992 KMEA College-University Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Hawkins is married to Cynthia Hawkins, band director at Jessie Clark Middle School in Lexington. They have two sons, Jay and Turner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns faculty-accolades is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-7387b849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Academic History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Post-doctoral study, University of Michigan, 1993<br>Ph.D., Texas Tech University, 1989<br>M.M., University of South Carolina, 1980<br>B.M.E., Southwest Texas State University, 1977<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Courses Taught at Transy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Concert Band<br>Chamber Orchestra<br>Instrumental Conducting<br>Teaching Instrumental Music<br>Brass Performance and Pedagogy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4393,"template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Relevanssi image attachment filter Relevanssi index exclude","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"academic_division":[63,66],"class_list":["post-232","faculty","type-faculty","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.5 (Yoast SEO v28.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hawkins, Ben - Website Experiments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/experiments\/faculty\/bhawkins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hawkins, Ben\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ben Hawkins has taught at Transylvania since 1985. 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