Lisa Brooks

Dr. Lisa Brooks is currently Professor of Violin and Interim Dean of the Jordan College of the Arts at Butler University. She held previous faculty appointments at Baylor University, the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, Messiah College, and Dickinson College.

Dr. Brooks received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in violin performance in four years from West Virginia University, where she was a student of Donald Portnoy. While completing her doctorate in violin performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, she studied with Joyce Robbins, and as a member of the Stony Brook graduate piano trio, coached extensively with Julius Levine and Gilbert Kalish. Other important teachers have included Rafael Bronstein, Ariana Bronne, Stanley Ritchie, William DePasquale and Carol Taleff.

As an orchestral musician, Dr. Brooks is currently principal second violinist of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and a frequent substitute musician with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on both violin and viola. She was associate concertmaster of the Waco Symphony and performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Opera Company of Philadelphia, and Harrisburg and Reading Symphony Orchestras; she also has toured nationally with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. She was an artist-fellow at the 1984 and 1985 Bach Aria Festivals, and was a finalist in the 1981 A.S.T.A. National Solo Competition. Dr. Brooks was a founding member of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, a period-instrument ensemble.

Influenced by workshops and training sessions she has participated in at the Lincoln Center Institute for Aesthetic Education in New York City, Dr. Brooks has developed and taught a variety of academic courses at Butler. These include a non-traditional, listening-based approach to music appreciation for non-music majors, as well as a two-semester First Year Seminar sequence based on Classical Music and Society, which incorporates critical thinking, reading, writing, and speaking. In demand as a clinician for student musicians and teaching colleagues alike, her recent lectures and recitals have included presentations for the IMEA convention, the College Music Society’s Institute for Gender and Music, and a lecture-recital at a conference celebrating women in music held at Ohio University. In addition, Dr. Brooks presents the pre-concert lectures for the Ensemble Music Society.

In 2013, Lisa received the inaugural Faculty Award for Distinguished Service and Leadership from Butler University, and in 2001, she received a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.