W. Harry Clarke
Associate Professor of Music

Degrees:
M.A. - G. Peabody College (Vanderbilt) 1963
B.M.E. - Delta State University 1959

At UK since: 1968

Phone: 859-257-4900
Email: hclarke@uky.edu

Professor Clarke has been a faculty member at University of Kentucky since 1968, and currently teaches music education and conducting. From 1989 to 2003, he served as the Director of the School of Music, presiding over a school of outstanding faculty and students, with accelerated growth in numbers and in prestigious reputation.

Before that time he served for 21 years as the UK Director of Bands, during which time the UK bands grew in numbers and quality, from less than 100 in 1967 to almost 300 by 1973. Also during those times, reacting to the increase in student population, the School of Music added full time faculty positions in clarinet, flute, bassoon, saxophone, trombone and percussion. During this period he was active as a guest conductor for All-State and All-Regional bands and an adjudicator for bands and orchestras throughout the United States. The Wind Ensemble, under his direction, performed at both MENC and CBDNA conventions.

Professor Clarke is a graduate of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi and George Peabody College, now a part of Vanderbilt University. He has taught bands and choirs in Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. He taught first in Kentucky as a member of the faculty at Eastern Kentucky University. He has studied conducting with the late John Paynter of Northwestern University.

He has been a member of the Lexington Philharmonic and the Lexington Singers and conductor of the Central Kentucky Concert Band. Active as a music educator, he has taught the principal courses in instrumental music education since 1970 and the many graduates of those courses currently are successful music educators in some 30 states, from elementary through university levels. He currently serves on the board of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra, supervises music student teachers, and is certified to evaluate new teachers in the Kentucky Teacher Intern Program.