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| Centre College Faculty | |
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Telephone: 859-238-6688 |
| George Foreman is managing director of the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College, where he also serves as an associate professor of humanities. He joined the College in 1983 after serving nine years as director of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center in Iola, Kansas.
An energetic promoter of the arts and music historian, Foreman has guided the Norton Center to prominence in the performing arts. The center's annual series has delighted patrons with performances by artists such as dancers Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and soprano Kathleen Battle, as well as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the National Ballet of China. As part of the series, professional touring companies bring three or four major Broadway shows each year. The Norton Center also hosts a series of art exhibits each year, and Foreman's personal initiatives have resulted in a number of donations that have dramatically increased the size of the College's permanent art collection. Foreman's energy and creativity have had a visible effect beyond the bounds of the Centre campus. Assisted and sponsored by the Advocate-Messenger newspaper in Danville, he formed and directs the Advocate Brass Band, a re-creation of a turn-of-the-century brass town band. The band brings together local citizens with Centre students and faculty for an outdoor concert series each spring and fall. Under Foreman's direction, the band has released a series of compact discs featuring marches named for American newspapers. Many of the marches were unearthed by Foreman during years of research on the history of town brass bands. Perhaps most notably, Foreman founded in 1990 the Great American Brass Band Festival in Danville. The annual summer event that features around a dozen bands in free outdoor concerts and attracts 40,000 visitors from around the world. Foreman's contributions to Danville and Boyle County have been honored with the 1996 Bruce Montgomery Leadership Award. Foreman holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of New Mexico, and he completed a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Kansas. He has published a number of articles on music history and currently is at work on a book about C. L. Barnhouse, an important figure in American band history.
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