Julie Hill
Dr. Julie Hill is an award-winning music educator, performer, scholar, and nonprofit executive with over 30 years of experience across K–12 and higher education. She is Co-President, Founder, and CEO of Global Citizen Adventure Corps (GCAC), a nonprofit organization that facilitates global service-learning experiences for rural youth in the Mid-South, with a focus on equity and access.
Dr. Hill’s academic and artistic work centers on music as a vehicle for social mobility, particularly advocating for Black women and underserved youth in Northeastern Brazil. A fluent speaker of Brazilian Portuguese, she has presented hundreds of lectures, performances, and workshops across the United States and internationally in Brazil, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, France, and more.
An internationally touring artist with the award-winning Caixa Trio, Dr. Hill also serves as Principal Percussionist with the Paducah Symphony Orchestra. She is currently Co-Editorial Director of Percussive Notes, the scholarly journal of the Percussive Arts Society, where she also served as Past President.
Previously, Dr. Hill served as Chair of the Department of Music and Professor of Percussion at the University of Tennessee at Martin, where she held a faculty position from 2005–2021. Her contributions there were recognized with numerous awards, including the UT President’s Educate Award (system-wide, inaugural recipient), UT Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher Award, Cunningham Outstanding Teacher/Scholar Award, and the Hardy Graham Distinguished Professorship.
Dr. Hill is a Member Laureate of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity. She has authored several publications, including All-Inclusive Etudes (Row-Loff Productions), Music for Multi-Percussion: A World View (Alfred Publications), and numerous percussion works through Row-Loff and Innovative Percussion. Her research is featured in Percussive Notes and the Garland World Music Encyclopedias.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she created and hosted Keeping the Beat by TNMEA, an acclaimed nightly webinar series featuring 62 interactive programs with music luminaries such as Los Lobos, Chuck Leavell, and Raul Malo. The program reached viewers in 45 countries and engaged over 2 million users on social media.
Dr. Hill earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Kentucky, a Master of Music in Percussion Performance from Arizona State University, and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Tennessee at Martin. She is an artist and clinician for Yamaha, Zildjian, REMO, Innovative Percussion, and Grover Pro Percussion.
A lifelong traveler and advocate for global citizenship, Dr. Hill has visited over 30 countries, all 50 U.S. states, and 52 of America’s 63 national parks.