The Morrison Center will host a joint retirement party for Professor, Director of Bands and Conductor of the University Symphonic Winds Marcellus Brown, and Professor of Theatre Arts and Department Chair Richard Klautsch. The university community is invited to celebrate their contributions to the university from 3:30-5 p.m. on Monday, April 17 at the Morrison Center. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP in advance.
Marcellus Brown
Marcellus Brown is a professor and the director of bands at Boise State. He also conducts the University Symphonic Winds and the Treasure Valley Concert Band. He teaches instrumental conducting and serves as the director of the Boise State University Summer Chamber Music Camp.
Under his direction, the University Symphonic Winds has been recognized as one of the outstanding large wind ensembles in the Northwest. They have presented concerts at numerous Idaho State Music Educators Conferences, the Western/Northwestern College Band Directors National Association Regional Conference, and the 2011 College Band Directors National Association National Conference held in Seattle, Washington.
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Brown holds a Masters of Music Degree in Trumpet Performance and a Bachelor of Music Education Degree from the University of Michigan. He has done doctoral work at the University of Illinois, where he studied conducting.
Brown has worked extensively as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator throughout the United States. He has been a guest conductor and presenter at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. He was recognized for his work and dedication as an educator at Boise State as the recipient of the 2002 Excellence In Teaching Award presented by the LDS Student Association, the 2002 Faculty/Staff Larry G. Selland Humanitarian Award presented by the University Women’s Center and one of ten honored faculty to receive the 2003 and 2012 Top Ten Student Scholar Awards.
Richard Klautsch
Richard Klautsch has been a professor of theatre arts for 21 years at Boise State and chair of the department for 15. He will be stepping down as chair for the Department of Theatre, Film, and Creative Writing and entering a phased retirement.
A professional actor in Boise since 1992, Klautsch worked for eight seasons at Boise Contemporary Theater and 21 seasons at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival.
Klautsch has appeared in numerous productions with Boise Contemporary Theater and directed the company’s productions of “Lobby Hero” and “A Number.” At Idaho Shakespeare Festival, he appeared most recently as Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing” and as Rev. David Lee in “The Foreigner, ” among many others, including reprisals of roles with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival at the Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. In the fall of 2006, he was a guest artist and instructor at University of California, Santa Barbara, where he appeared as Apemantus in a production of “Timon of Athens” as part of the Lit Moon World Shakespeare Festival.
In 2011 he was named Administrator of the Year by the Boise State University Association of Office Professionals; in 2012, he received the same recognition from the Idaho Association of Educational Office Professionals.
He received his MFA and Ph.D. degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit.