Brad Cawyer
Email: b-cawyer@bethel.edu
Job titles
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Assistant Professor of Music, Director of String Activities
Music and Theatre , College of Arts and Sciences
Highlight
Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Theory, Orchestral Conducting, Opera Conducting, Interdisciplinary Arts, Music Cognition
Started at Bethel
2025
Education
- Texas A&M University - B.A. in Mathematics, 2003
- Texas Tech University - D.M.A. in Orchestral Conducting, 2024
Biography
Brad Everett Cawyer is Assistant Professor of Music, Director of Orchestras, and Director of String Activities at Bethel University, joining the Department of Music and Performing Arts faculty in fall 2025. Additionally, he is entering his tenth season as principal conductor with Dallas’s Avant Chamber Ballet.
Recognized for innovative interpretations, collaborative leadership, and deep-founded musicality, Cawyer’s clear and engaging style inspires both performers and audiences alike. Drawing upon a concept of orchestral sound shaped through experience in America’s most prized concert halls, his work on the podium weaves the intimacy of chamber performance with the breadth of symphonic resources.
With dedication to fostering creative excellence and an ease in connecting with audiences, Cawyer's career has taken him to diverse stages worldwide through collaborations across the United States, such as with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America. Through his work for orchestras in the Americas he has participated in critically acclaimed projects, including a Grammy-award winning recording of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony. Equally well-versed in opera, Cawyer’s work for the theatre covers repertoire from the baroque to the present day. He was a founding member of the music staff for Ghenady Meirson‘s Russian Opera Workshop and continues to provide lyric diction coaching for artists performing around the globe.
As both conductor and producer, Cawyer’s passion for contemporary music reaches back to his time in Russia, where he served as principal conductor for Saint Petersburg's premier new music ensemble and festival, SOUND WAYS. His recording projects have focused on works from the present and the recent past, contributing to catalogs at Naxos, Sony Classical, Navona, and Arqanoon. Through his collaborative work in dance, Cawyer has led productions of classics and modern works, ranging from Balanchine's iconic ballets to contemporary pieces by Katie Puder and Paul Mejia.
Cawyer completed the five-year diplom spetsialista (Opera and Symphonic Orchestra Conducting) at the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg Conservatory, studying with Alexander Alexeev, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics at Texas A&M–College Station, simultaneously founding the university orchestra. He received a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from Texas Tech University, where he also obtained graduate certificates in opera performance, interdisciplinary arts, and music cognition, and pursued research in the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism and the Performing Arts Research Lab (PeARL). His scholarly activities reach across the arts, humanities, and sciences, contributing to the fields of psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, music theory, conducting studies, and classical and popular music in America in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Courses taught
Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Theory and Aural Skills I, Music Hour
Areas of expertise
Music Theory, Orchestral Conducting, Opera Conducting, Interdisciplinary Arts, Music Cognition