Mary-Mitchell Campbell \u201996 will return to her alma mater this spring to deliver the keynote address at Furman University\u2019s commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 9.<\/p>\n
An accomplished musician, conductor and educator, Campbell has built a dynamic career that spans Broadway, television and symphonic performance. She earned a Drama Desk Award in 2007 for her orchestrations in the Broadway revival of \u201cCompany<\/em>\u201d<\/em> and served as music director for \u201cThe Addams Family<\/em>\u201d<\/em> on Broadway. She has also conducted leading orchestras across the country, including in Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Nashville and Colorado.<\/p>\n Campbell\u2019s work reaches well beyond the concert hall. She frequently collaborates with artists such as Kristin Chenoweth and Jessica Vosk and has worked in the pop music world with performers including James Taylor, Alicia Keys and one-time Furman student Amy Grant. Her television credits include serving as musical director and orchestrator for HBO\u2019s \u201cHomeschool Musical<\/em>,\u201d vocal director for Peacock\u2019s \u201cGirls5Eva<\/em>\u201d<\/em> and vocal coach for Disney+\u2019s \u201cBetter Nate Than Ever<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n A dedicated advocate for arts education, Campbell founded ArtsIgnite, an organization that trains artists to teach life skills through the arts to young people in the United States and around the world. Her commitment to service began at Furman, where she founded the Pauper Players, a student theatre group focused on volunteerism that continues today.<\/p>\n Campbell earned her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, from Furman in 1996 and later graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She has also shared her expertise with students at The Juilliard School, New York University and Boston College.<\/p>\n Furman will award degrees to members of the Class of 2026 during the commencement ceremony, where graduates and their families will hear from a Furman alumna whose career reflects both artistic excellence and a commitment to giving back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Broadway conductor and acclaimed educator will speak to Furman\u2019s graduating class on Saturday, May 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":42065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2773,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-commencement","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42068,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42061\/revisions\/42068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}