MOORES SCHOOL OF MUSIC DIRECTOR SELECTED AS NEW DEAN OF UMKC CONSERVATORY

Dr. Courtney Crappell has been selected as Dean of the Conservatory at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).

He will resign his positions as director of the Moores School of Music and Associate Dean for Operations in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston, effective July 31.  

Speaking of his tenure at UH, Crappell said, “Serving as director of the Moores School of Music has been a tremendous privilege and honor. I will always cherish my time spent here with the students, the faculty and staff, and the incredible people in the city of Houston who are supporting Moores every step of the way. I am especially grateful to Dean Andrew Davis for his complete and total support of my leadership endeavors during the past four years. Under his direction, I have no doubt that the school and the entire college is on an amazing trajectory.” 

Under Crappell’s leadership, the Moores School of Music enjoyed a tremendous period of success and development. He began by leading the school through its renewal of accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Music, and over the course of the next four years he hired more than thirty staff and faculty members. In the face of the global pandemic, he revised nearly every one of the school’s standard operating procedures in order to maintain continuous online and in-person instruction, while also producing a full season of live and in-person concerts. The school safely continued its regular activities during the pandemic while also enjoying a period of innovation, producing its first open-air opera and experimenting with new educational technologies.  

Other innovations overseen by Crappell include new initiatives such as Moores Music in the City, a series of pop-up concert events throughout the metropolitan area, and Moores Chamber Music Downtown, a chamber-music series at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston. His efforts also led to the first collaborative music theatre production, in partnership with the UH School of Theatre and Dance.  

With a focus on positioning the school as a top destination for music study, Crappell helped lead fundraising initiatives that significantly grew the school’s endowment and developed new sources of revenue for student scholarships, faculty endowed chairs, and program support, raising more than $10M over the past four years.

Much of this support resulted from Crappell’s focus on innovative curricular developments and collaborations with organizations in the city of Houston. In consultation with colleagues in the UH Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine and Houston Methodist Hospital’s Center for Performing Arts Medicine, he developed the proposal for the school’s new bachelor’s degree program in music therapy. The program was approved by the UHS Board of Regents in May 2022 and is slated for review by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Crappell was responsible for two anonymous gifts to support the program, one that led to the establishment of the $2M Alice and Fletcher Pratt Endowed Professorship in Music Therapy, and another of $250K to establish a named research space, the “Siblings” Music Therapy Laboratory in the Moores School of Music. 

As part of his work in the arts and health area, Crappell formed, and participated as a member in, a joint research team from the McGovern College of the Arts and the Fertitta Family College of Medicine. That team’s work has been published in the top-tier journal Psychology of Music and further validates the potential for interdisciplinary work in the field of arts and health. 

A believer in leveraging strategic and powerful collaborations, Crappell was awarded a $75,000 grant from the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC Foundation”), for the project “Come Together Houston: A Community Arts and Health Partnership.” Come Together Houston is a performance series produced in collaboration with Houston Methodist Hospital to raise vaccine awareness in Greater Houston by showcasing the work of four Houston artists: GONZO247, Outspoken Bean, Urban Souls, and the Mariachi Pumas of the University of Houston. 

Crappell’s collaborations in other areas include his establishing an Emerging Artist Program for Moores School of Music alumni in partnership with Opera in the Heights, and the Community Embedded Musician Fellowship for Moores graduate students, in partnership with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He also collaborated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to produce immersive art experiences for medical students from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.  

“It has been my great privilege to have appointed Courtney Crappell Director of the Moores School of Music four years ago and to have collaborated with him to advance the school and its mission during his tenure as Director. We have made tremendous strides, and he has positioned the school for strength, for national relevance, and for continued success under its next leader.”

Davis said he would immediately name an interim director and appoint a committee to conduct a national search for the Moores School of Music’s next director. The search will be supported by the national executive search firm Greenwood Asher and Associates. He also indicated that he would immediately conduct an independent national search for a new Associate Dean for Operations in the McGovern College.