2024 Clinicians

Jeff Barnett is the Director of Worship Sales at Sweetwater. He has 25 years' experience in worship technology as a live sound and recording engineer, system designer, installer, educator, and musician. Jeff works with thousands of churches and worship artists from all over the world, including Jesus Culture, David Crowder, Shane & Shane, and many more. Jeff enjoys working in his home studio and singing with his a cappella group, Smooth Edge 2. Jeff and his wife Brit are proud parents of six kids and are still trying to figure out where the youngest one's left shoe is. (If you find the shoe, please let him know.)

Dr. Brandon A. Boyd enjoys a versatile career as a conductor,
in addition to appearing regularly as a composer-in-residence,
collaborative pianist, and presenter for conferences, conventions,
collegiate choirs, church choirs, choral symposiums, and
festivals. He is the Director of Choral Activities and Associate
Professor of Choral Music Education at the University of Missouri,
where he conducts MU University Singers and Choral Union. In
addition to his conducting duties at the university, he teaches
undergraduate and graduate courses in choral conducting and
choral music education.

He is the Ben H. Williams Professor of Church Music and Director of the Church Music Program and the Center for Christian Music Studies at Baylor University where he is a member of the undergraduate and graduate faculties and directs the Baylor University Men's Choir. With a passion for building bridges between Christian musicians, he continually looks for ways to create meaningful dialogue among all who are committed to serving the church through music.

A native of Indiana, Craig Courtney began playing the piano at the age of three and the cello at the age of eleven. He received a Bachelors and a Masters degree in piano performance at the University of Cincinnati, studying piano under Raymond Dudley and chamber music under Walter Levin of the LaSalle Quartet. During that time, he was a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda Honorary Music Society. Following a three-year stay in Milan, Italy, where Mr. Courtney studied the piano with Illonka Deckers, performed for the Associazione Musicale "Gustav Mahler", and worked extensively as a vocal coach, he was invited to join the music faculty of the famed Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, serving as piano teacher and accompanist for the woodwind and brass department. It was during this six-year period, while serving in the music ministry of the Salzburg International Baptist Church, that Mr. Courtney began directing a church choir and composing sacred choral music, due to the unavailability of English language music. In 1985, his compositions came to the attention of John Ness Beck, through the publication of his octavo, Thy Will Be Done, initiating a close working relationship between the two men which continued until Mr. Beck's death in 1987. In making plans for the ongoing of Beckenhorst Press, Mr. Beck appointed Craig Courtney to assume his responsibilities as staff composer and editor. 

Whitney Head teaches K-5 music at Elizabeth Elementary School in Shelby, North Carolina.  She is passionate about shining God’s light in the public-school setting and enjoys working to provide a loving, joy-filled space for her students.  Whitney is certified in Orff-Schulwerk I and II and strives to create engaging curriculum that promotes student creativity.  She has written for Growing in Grace and Chorister’s Guild and has presented at conferences in Alabama and North Carolina.  She is a member of Parkwood Baptist Church where she plays bass on the worship team and teaches an ESL class.  Prior to teaching, Whitney served in full-time ministry in Alabama and on the mission field in El Salvador.  She earned a Master’s degree in Music Education from Samford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Church Music from Samford as well. 

In August 2023, Dr. Jens Korndörfer was appointed Associate Professor of Organ at Baylor University in Texas. Previously, he served as Director of Worship and the Arts and Organist at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta and directed the organ program at Georgia State University.

Praised as “a virtuoso in the grand Romantic tradition” who creates “performances that are deeply musically satisfying as well as exciting” (The American Organist), Korndörfer is regularly invited at the most prestigious venues and festivals around the world.

Lloyd Larson earned a B.A. from Anderson University of Anderson, Indiana in 1976 and a M.C.M. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky in 1979. He has done additional graduate work at Southern Baptist Seminary, The Ohio State University, and Northern Baptist Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. Since 1982, Lloyd has been an active composer and arranger for several major publishing companies of church and school music. His compositions and arrangements include well over 1,500 published works—including choral anthems, numerous extended Christmas, Easter and nonseasonal works, keyboard collections, vocal solo and duet collections, instrumental works for solo and ensembles, orchestrations, and handbell settings. It is Lloyd's work in his local church that continues to be the catalyst for much of his writing where he is actively involved in various roles of music leadership. 

Matthew Laube joined the Baylor School of Music in 2022. Before this, Dr. Laube was a doctoral and postdoctoral research assistant at The British Library in 2011 and 2014. Between 2014 and 2017, he was a Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellow jointly at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Cambridge, where he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Robinson College, Cambridge. Most recently Dr. Laube was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History at Birkbeck, University of London. Since October 2018, he has been Assistant Editor and Reviews Editor of the journal Early Music History. Dr. Laube completed an MM in Trombone Performance at the University of Utah, and an MM and PhD in Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Conductor-teacher Kristina Caswell MacMullen has devoted her career to sharing music and inspiration with students and audiences. Her collaborations with fellow musicians continue to confirm her abiding hope for the future and an unflagging belief in the power of choral music. 

Joseph Martin, a native of North Carolina, earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Subsequently he earned a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Texas, Austin. He is a member of the staff of Shawnee Press, Inc. as Director of Sacred Publications, with responsibilities for overseeing the editorial and creative direction of the company and also coordinating the recording and production aspects of future sacred publishing efforts. 

Originally from Recife, Brazil, Maria serves as Lecturer in Church Music at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and as Music Director at Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana (First Mexican Baptist Church), in San Antonio. Before joining the Baylor faculty in 2020, she taught for seventeen years at Baptist University of the Américas, also in San Antonio. Maria holds a Master of Music (1991) and a Bachelor of Music (1987) degrees in Music History and Literature from Baylor University, a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Musicology (1998) from Duke University, and a Ph.D. in Church Music (2021) from Baylor. 

Kent Morris is the Live Sound Market Manager for Sweetwater and a forty-year veteran of the live event arena. He has spent decades on the road with countless artists such as Paul Baloche and Israel Houghton. He’s overseen hundreds of AVL installations in every type of venue imaginable. An in-demand writer, Kent has penned thousands of industry articles for hundreds of print and online publications. He's the live sound engineer for In Touch Ministries where he mixes each week for First Baptist Atlanta (Dr. Charles Stanley). Kent and his wife Melani are based in Georgia and have two adult sons. 

Stephen Newby currently holds The Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and Professor of Music and serves as Ambassador for The Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University.

He formerly served as Minister of Worship at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA, as Director for the Center for African American Worship studies at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN, and he held a tenured Professor of Music post at Seattle Pacific University, where he also served as Director of University Ministries, Director for the Center for Worship, and Senior Advisor to the University President for Missional Excellence. He has more than three decades of University level teaching and administration to his credit.

For over thirty years, Keith has demonstrated his great love and devotion for working with children through directing younger and older children’s choirs and his frequent engagement as a children’s choir clinician throughout the Southeast United States.

Keith Pate has served Eastern Hills Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, as Minister of Music, since 2003. Keith holds a Bachelor of Music from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama (1984), and a Master of Church Music from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky (1989).

Kyle Pederson is a Minneapolis-based composer, lyricist, pianist, and educator.  He enjoys working at the intersection of the sacred and secular, and his lyrics and music invite the choir and audience to be agents of hope, grace, and compassion in the world.  Pederson was awarded the American Prize in Choral Composition in 2019, and the ACDA Genesis Prize in 2020.  Pederson has an undergraduate degree from Augustana University, a Masters Degree in Education from University of St. Thomas, and an MFA in Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Art.  His work is commissioned, performed, and recorded by community, school, and professional choirs around the world and is published by Walton, Santa Barbara, ECS, Hal Leonard, Beckenhorst, Carl Fischer, and Alfred. 

Terry Taylor is Managing Editor of Growing in Grace Children’s Music Curriculum, a comprehensive faith-based resource in use in over 1000 churches and schools in 40 states. From 1980-2012 Terry served as a full-time Minister of Music. He received a BCM from Belmont University and a MCM from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Terry is widely respected for his creativity, advocacy, and leadership in music ministry with children. He is the founder and director of the Children’s Freedom Choir and Music City SoundTracks, which reach out to socially and economically challenged children in south Nashville.