Dr. Jim Taylor is Director of Fine Arts and Professor of Music at LeTourneau University. He has experience in a wide array of musical genres. His musical journey began teaching himself how to play ukulele at age 8, guitar at age 10, and pop piano at age 14, leading to his playing in rock bands as a teenager. He was saved at age 19 and shortly thereafter went to Florida Atlantic University where he earned a degree in Music Composition. After one year of post-graduate study at North Texas in Denton, he went on to earn a master's degree in Studio Writing and Production at the University of Miami, preparing for a career as an arranger and record producer in the early years of Christian contemporary music. The Lord directed him into church music, however, and for the next 20+ years he directed large church music programs in Florida, Colorado, and Alabama. After his children were grown, he studied as the Narramore Scholar at the University of Alabama, earning a doctorate in Choral Conducting. In 2009 he began as Director of Choral Activities at Kilgore College in Kilgore, TX, and served in that capacity for eight years. LeTourneau University recruited him in 2017 to begin a Fine Arts department, creating and developing various artistic electives for its students.
Dr. Taylor is the founder of the Jacksonville (FL) Children’s Chorus, which he directed between 1995 and 2000, and which now annually trains over 500 young singers (https://www.jaxchildrenschorus.org/). He has studied under many of the musical luminaries of our day, including John Rutter, Robert Shaw, and Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival. He has a special relationship with the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in Ukraine, having conducted there on four occasions between 2005 and 2018. He conducted his Cambridge Songs Suite No. 2 at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2019, and his fourth suite from the same set at L’eglise de la Madeleine in Paris in 2022. His choral compositions are published by Oxford University Press, Hinshaw Music, Roger Dean, Choristers Guild and other music publishers, and have been featured at All-State festivals and performed internationally. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association and the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music. Dr. Taylor considers it a great privilege to be at LeTourneau where he can live out his calling by sharing his enthusiasm for great music and by sharing his faith.
Dr. Taylor directs the LeTourneau Singers and the Longview Civic Chorus, the university's two choral ensembles. He teaches the 3-hour course, MUSC1303 Music Appreciation, which takes the student through a study of the great art music of Western civilization, ending with jazz, musical theater, and rock 'n' roll. He oversees the student praise bands and the adjunct teachers teaching the various areas of the fine arts. You can catch him playing vintage pop oldies from the ‘60s and ‘70s at wineries and restaurants in the East Texas area or playing tennis with friends. He and his wife, Karen, live in Kilgore and have three children and six grandchildren.
If you are interested in anything having to do with the arts, please contact Dr. Taylor at jimtaylor@letu.edu or (903) 233-3379 today!
