Kay George Roberts, 1950-today Kay George Roberts is the founder and music director of the New England Orchestra and a professor of music at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is the first woman and the second African-American to receive a doctorate in musical arts from Yale University. Kay Roberts was born in 1950 in Nashville, Tennessee. She played the violin from a young age and joined the Nashville Youth Symphony when she was 14. Three years later, at 17, she joined the Nashville Symphony and was chosen to represent the symphony as part of the World Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble made up of musicians from around the world, brought together by Walt Disney Productions to play three concerts celebrating the opening of Disney World. Roberts attended Fisk University in Nashville and majored in music. She then attended Yale University. While in her second year at Yale she took a conducting class, and the experience made her refocus her studies to conducting. She went on the earn two master’s degrees from Yale, one in violin performance and a second in violin performance and orchestral conducting, and in 1986, she became the first woman to receive a doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from Yale. Roberts made her debut as a professional conductor in her hometown, with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and has had great success as a conductor ever since. She joined the music department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1978, and she remains there as a professor emerita. Her biography on the university web page lists the following information and professional accomplishments: Roberts is the founder and music director of the Lowell-based New England Orchestra with the mission of linking cultures through music. Her guest conducting engagements have included the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit and Nashville Symphony orchestras as well as the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. She has served as a cover conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Roberts is the principal conductor for Opera North, Inc. in Philadelphia. A champion of music education, she is the founder and director of the UMass Lowell String Project, an after-school string training program for Lowell public school children and the newly formed Lowell Youth Orchestra. The recipient of many honors, Roberts was awarded a "Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition" from the U.S. House of Representatives for her "outstanding and invaluable service to the community"; the University of Michigan "Presidential Professor" - "one of the highest honors bestowed on visiting artists and scholars" - for her work with the Sphinx Symphony; and the 2007 University of Massachusetts "President’s Public Service Award" in recognition of exemplary public service to the Commonwealth. In 2009, Roberts was selected as "Today's Woman" by Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell and appointed the first holder of the Nancy Donahue Endowed Professorship in the Arts at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. This story is derived from the Wikipedia article “Kay George Roberts” and the University Massachusetts Lowell faculty web page for Kay Roberts.

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