Dr. Christopher Hutton, professor of Music, is the 2024 SCICU Excellence In Teaching Award recipient for Furman University. He earned a doctorate and master’s degree in Musical Arts, both from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Music degree in Cello Performance from Boston University. His cello mentors were Leslie Parnas, Paul Katz, and Steven Doane. Prior to joining the Furman faculty in 2003, he taught at the University of Rochester, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the University of Delaware, and the Eastern Music Festival.
Hutton teaches applied cello, string chamber music, and a variety of courses in music history and literature. As co-director of study-away programs, he has traveled with students to Belgium, England, France, and Italy, and this May will lead a second iteration of a program taking students to attend multiple performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
In addition to his work in the music department, Dr. Hutton has been involved in Furman’s system of shared governance, chairing the May Experience Oversight Committee for four years and serving as faculty chair and faculty council chair for three years.
Outside the Furman classroom, Dr. Hutton is the cellist for the Greenville-based Poinsett Piano Trio and performs regularly for South Carolina Bach and in the Greenville Symphony. His ongoing project Reflecting Bach has included dozens of recitals juxtaposing J.S. Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello with solo music by composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He performs on a cello made by renowned English luthier John Betts, c.1795.
Limestone University – 2024 SCICU Excellence In Teaching – Dr. Karl J. Trybus