S. J. Willis

Dr. Sharon J. Willis, Author, Composer, Playwriter, Lecturer (African American Spiritual), Soprano, and Pianist served as Music Department Chair at Clark Atlanta University before returning to chair the Morris Brown College Music Department. She currently serves as Director of the Sanctuary Choir at Hoosier Memorial U.M.C, Rev. Gary Dean Pastor. Recent honors include the Kuumba Award of Arts and Letters presented by Delta Sigma Theta, 2019; The Inspirational Trumpet Award, 2019; Composer of the Year, National Pen Women, 2016; the Samuel Johnson Distinguished Music Educator’s Award, 2017; and a featured composer at the 2nd Annual Women Composer’s Festival, University of Mississippi for Women, March 2018. Willis has several commissioned works having written for the American Guild of Organists; and the Georgia Music Educators Conference. Dr. Willis is the founding director of Americolor Opera and to date has written and premiered 14 operas and 9 plays. The author just completed the FANCY GAL Trilogy and Prequel about the antebellum life of a Creole Fancy Gal on a southern plantation. Willis holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree, the University of Georgia; a Master’s in Church Music, Scarritt Graduate School; a Master’s in Music, Georgia State University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Clark College in Atlanta.