About Us
Claflin University Music Department
The Department of Music is housed in the newly constructed University Music Center. The 1.8 million dollar structure is home to the University Bands, the University Choral Studies area, and the departmental administrative office. It also houses several teaching studios, classroom space, practice rooms, and a state-of-the-art audio/visual technology center.
Adjacent to the Music Center is the Whitaker V. Middleton Fine Arts Center. This facility contains several teaching studios, classrooms, and practice rooms. It also houses the Daniel C. Moss Auditorium, a 600-seat performance hall used for concerts, theatrical productions, recitals, and lectures.
In close proximity to the Fine Arts Center is Minister’s Hall, the University’s newly renovated Performing Arts Center and one of our most historic campus structures. It contains the 200-seat Ernest E. Finney, Jr. Auditorium, which provides an additional forum for master classes, chamber performances, faculty and student recitals, guest artists, workshops, and lectures.
Dr. Eric Crawford, Interim Music Department Chair
Email: ercrawford@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5076
Biography
Eric Crawford is interim chair of the music department at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from The Catholic University of America. His research focuses on the rich tradition of Gullah music, specifically the retentions and alterations that have occurred since the antebellum period. Beginning in 2007, he conducted extensive field recordings on Saint Helena Island, site of the historic Port Royal Experiment, and his transcriptions are held at the Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. An outgrowth of this work was the Saint Helena Island Gullah Spirituals Project, which brought together noted scholars and students to preserve and foster the study of the earliest recorded Negro spirituals. In 2013, the Athenaeum Press at Coastal Carolina University published his field interviews in a CD and accompanying booklet entitled Gullah: The Voice of an Island.
His work on historic Sandy Island led to the 2017 publication At Low Tide: The Voices of Sandy Island. This booklet and interactive multi-media project highlight the rich history of Sandy Island and the need to ensure this island’s continued survival. As part of this effort, the National Park Service awarded Coastal Carolina University an African American Civil Rights grant to rebuild the island’s historic school and create an interactive cultural center. Since 2018, Crawford has worked on the Gullah Geechee Digital Project, which digitizes more than 6,900 historic records from plantation journals, musical transcriptions, and contemporary oral histories. In 2021, he appeared in Henry Louis Gates’ miniseries “The Black Church” and was music consultant for the Amazon miniseries “The Underground Railroad.” His books are Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands (University of South Carolina Press, 2021) and Gullah Culture in America (Blair Publishing, 2023). He is currently working on a book documenting the rich history of the HBCU band tradition.
ESC
Music Department Faculty
Ms. Helen Meacham, Staff Accompanist and Instructor of Music
Email: hmeacham@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5564
Biography
Helen Meacham brings a vast knowledge of collaborative piano work to Claflin University, where she is Staff Accompanist and Instructor of Music. A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, she has a Master’s degree in Accompanying and Chamber Music from Florida State University and a Bachelors in Piano Performance from Delta State University. She has performed in Dinant, Belgium and across South Africa, in addition to numerous venues across the U.S. With more than 3 decades of experience in coaching and accompanying vocalists and instrumentalists in a wide variety of settings, she is pleased to be a part of the Claflin family.
Dr. Eunjung Choi, Professor of Music
Email: echoi@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5355
Biography
Pianist Eunjung Choi, a native of Seoul, South Korea, currently serves as Professor of Music at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where she administers the keyboard program as well as teaches applied piano, class piano, piano pedagogy/literature, and music appreciation courses. Most recently, Dr. Choi was selected to be one of four recipients for the FY 2023 Fellowship award from the South Carolina Arts Commission. In addition, she was awarded a 2022 SC Humanities Major Grant to present lecture-recital series to South Carolina audiences. She was also awarded a 2021 South Carolina Arts Commission Arts Project Support Grant to make her CD, titled “Celebrating Women Composers.” Other performance projects have included a 2016 South Carolina Arts Commission Quarterly Grant to make her solo CD, titled “Inside Out: A Journey,” and a Major Grant from The Humanities Council SC for the lecture-recital series, “Promoting South Carolina African-American Composers' Classical Music.” Videos from the lecture-recital series may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy570QZxUg.
Dr. Choi has presented numerous performances to international, national, and regional music audiences in the United States and South Korea. She has been selected to perform in many conferences, including the College Music Society’s Regional, National, and International Conferences, Boston University African-American Music in World Culture International Conference, African Diaspora Symposium, The National Association of Negro Musicians Annual Conference, and The Korean Association of Piano Pedagogy Annual Symposiums in Seoul, South Korea. She has also been invited to perform in various venues such as Georgia College & State University Concert Series, Edward Waters College Concert Series, Steinway Galleries of Greenville and Charleston, Greenville Women’s Music Club, Stevenson Auditorium Concert sponsored by the Orangeburg Music Club, Pensacola Music Teachers Association, Texas A&M University-Commerce Concert Series, Midwestern State University Concert Series, The Korea Opera Society, Gimpo City Opera Association, and The Korea Piano Society in South Korea. In addition, Dr. Choi has been appeared as a concerto soloist with the Limestone College Wind Ensemble, Claflin University Wind Ensemble, and Georgia College & State University Concert Band.
Her research presentations have included topics such as multicultural music performance and teaching strategies and curriculum development to incorporate interdisciplinary approaches in music higher education. Her articles have been published in International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, Piano Magazine, American Music Teacher, the Journal of Music Education Science, published by the Korean Society of Music Educational Technology, and the Korean Association of Piano Pedagogy Press.
In addition to her active schedule as a soloist, collaborative artist, masterclass clinician, and adjudicator, Dr. Choi is very active in the South Carolina Music Teachers Association, serving as President-Elect. She is also on the board member of the Korean Association of Piano Pedagogy.
Dr. Choi holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of South Carolina, a master's degree in Piano and Organ Performance from Ball State University, and a bachelor's degree in Piano Performance from Dongduk Women's University, Seoul, South Korea. In addition, she completed a Management Development Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Her principal teachers include Charles Fugo, Scott Price, Robert Palmer, Kirby Koriath, and Myung Hye Bang.
Dr. Jeremy Robins, Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Email: jrobins@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5320
Biography
Dr. Robins joined the Department of Music at Claflin University in 2018 following a year teaching at his alma mater, Stetson University, in DeLand, Florida. He earned his Masters and Ph.D. in Music Theory from Florida State University after spending six years teaching high school band in Central Florida.
Dr. Robins’s primary research area is popular music, but he also has extensive interest in form and music theory pedagogy. As a former high school teacher band director, he values the musical skill sets he imparts to his students, particularly in aural skills classes.
Dr. Laura Keith, Associate Professor of Music
Email: lkeith@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5298
Biography
As an experienced public school music educator teaching first thru twelfth grades, with a distinguished record of accomplishments, Dr. Keith is very much interested in spreading her knowledge of music education to her students.
Dr. Laura J. Keith is an accomplished music educator, having taught elementary general music and as a middle and high school choral director. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Music at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina, teaching music education, piano, and honors thesis. Recently, Dr. Keith has been awarded a grant from the Humanities Council SC and has presented lecture-recital series in the spring of 2013. Prior to joining Claflin, Dr. Keith was the Choral Director at Westside High School where her students performed for the school, the community, participated in the South Carolina All-State Chorus and choral festivals in Florida, New York, New Orleans, and the Bahamas. She has served as the middle school clinician for Richland County School District One in Columbia, South Carolina, Spartanburg District Number Seven in Spartanburg, South Carolina and the Lower Region High School Choral Festival at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina. She was voted “Teacher of the Year” for Anderson School District Number Five in Anderson, South Carolina, 1980.
Several of her former students are presently music teachers on various levels. During the fall of 2001, she traveled to the People’s Republic of China as a guest lecturer and spent two weeks in Beijing teaching courses on American music at Capital Normal University. Dr. Keith received the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Howard University, Washington, DC, the Master of Music Education degree, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education degree from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. She is a member of College Music Society and National Association for Music Education.
Ms. Kristene Overman, Visiting Instructor of Voice
Email: koverman@claflin.edu
Phone: 803-535-5236
Biography
Soprano Kristine Overman fell in love with music from a young age, always singing along to her parents’ musical records as a little girl. Recognizing that she had a good voice, her parents sent her to audition for the Michigan Opera Theater Children’s Chorus at the age of 10. While onstage in her first production, Carmen, she fell in love with opera and never stopped. Her flair for the dramatic made her a natural on stage and she never looked back, dedicating her life to the operatic art form.
Most recently on the operatic stage, Kristine performed the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon at Opera in the Ozarks. A recent graduate of the University of Houston, she had the pleasure of portraying Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Amelia in Amelia al ballo, Lady Billows in Albert Herring, and Mrs. Pinkerton in the Old Maid and the Thief. Unable to resist a Mozart heroine, she has also portrayed Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at Music Academy International and the Countess in the Marriage of Figaro at both the University of Michigan and Prague Summer Nights. Other notable roles include Miss Copland in Dinner at Eight, Romilda in Serse and Suor Dolcina in Suor Angelica.
On the concert stage, she has sung most notably the soprano solos in the Mozart Requiem and Forrest’s Jubilate Deo. She has also excelled in some prominent competitions, winning 1st prize in the NATS Regional Auditions in Southeast Michigan, taking 3rd place in the George Shirley Vocal Competition and competing as a Finalist in the University of Michigan Concert Competition.
Kristine works as a voice teacher where she is inspired on a daily basis by seeing and hearing people from all levels and diverse backgrounds fall in love with all types of music.
Outside of music, Kristine loves to cook. She recently finished translating all of her grandma's recipes from French and then cooked her way through them - a difficult but rewarding experience. She also plays the piano and is an avid swing dancer.
Kristine earned her Bachelor's Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan and received the Moores Fellowship Endowment to pursue her Masters in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Houston. She currently resides in Columbia, South Carolina and studies with International Operatic Soprano, Jennifer Rowley.