The Truett-McConnell College family welcomes Dr. Ben Caston as the Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music. Dr. Caston is a native of Liberty, Mississippi. He graduated from William Carey College (1996) in Hattiesburg, MS, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he earned a Master of Music (1998) and Doctor of Musical Arts (2005), each with an emphasis in voice. Dr. Caston taught at Brewton-Parker College for four and a half years before joining the music faculty of Truett-McConnell College in January 2010.
A lyric tenor and active oratorio soloist, he performed the tenor solos in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Gainesville Symphony Orchestra in October 2009. Other performances include Orff’s Carmina Burana, Schubert’s Mass in G, Handel’s Messiah, Honneger’s King David, and Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio. He was also featured in Nelson and Farrell’s Savior: a Modern Oratorio with First Baptist Church of Newnan in March 2009. Dr. Caston is scheduled to conduct Mozart’s Requiem with the Truett-McConnell Chorale in April 2010.
An ordained minister and active in music ministry since 1994, Dr. Caston has served Southern Baptist churches in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. He currently serves as interim minister of music at First Baptist Church of Perry, Georgia. Passionate about youth choirs, Dr. Caston served as the choral clinician for the Georgia Baptist Youth Choir REEL (Refocusing Energy on Exalting the Lord) Festival in January 2007 and as conductor for the Youth I Music Camp in June of the same year. He is a member of the Sons of Jubal and toured Russia with the group in April 2007
Dr. Caston is an active member of the Georgia Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Georgia Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association, and The Southern Baptist Church Music Conference. In January 2007, he presented a paper based on his doctoral research at the Third Annual New Voice Educator’s Symposium sponsored by the Student NATS chapter of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He and his wife, Rebecca, have a son, Clay, and a daughter, Sydney, and they live in Cleveland, Georgia.
