George C. Foreman is a musicologist and conductor with more than 30 years of experience managing performing arts centers, including the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center in Athens, Georgia and the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. While at Centre College, Foreman served as conductor and co-founder of the New Columbian Brass Band, which performs the music of the Golden Age of American Bands (1880 to 1920). The 23-piece ensemble is comprised of leading professional musicians from coast to coast. A review in The New Yorker of the band’s recording The Teddy Bears Picnic called it “the most delightful collection of musical levity on the market.” Foreman also founded the Advocate Brass Band and served as its conductor for twenty years. Composed of amateur and professional musicians from the region, the band has performed more than 150 live concerts and released six CDs of historic American band music, including four compilations of marches named for American newspapers. Before directing the Norton Center, Foreman was director of the Thomas H. Bowlus Fine Arts Center in Iola, Kansas. Foreman earned his doctorate in musicology from the University of Kansas and holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree from the University of New Mexico.
