GENESEO, N.Y. – President Barack Obama intends to nominate SUNY Geneseo alumna Ysaye M. Barnwell to membership on the National Council on the Arts, the White House announced today.
The influential arts organization advises the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts on agency policies and programs. It reviews and makes recommendations to the chairman on applications for grants, funding guidelines, and leadership initiatives.
Barnwell received both a bachelor's and master's degree in speech pathology from Geneseo in 1967 and 1968, respectively. She also earned a doctorate in speech pathology from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's degree in public health from Howard University. Geneseo conferred a honorary doctorate of humane letters on her during commencement in 1998.
Barnwell, best known as a singer in the Grammy Award winning, internationally renowned all-woman African American a cappella ensemble "Sweet Honey in the Rock," is president and owner of Barnwell’s Notes Publishing, Inc., a position she has held since 1985. She is prolific composer and has been commissioned to create music for dance, choral, film and stage productions. She is a master teacher and choral clinician in African American cultural performance and conducts music workshops around the world. She also has acted in a television series and appeared in the 1998 film "Beloved," which starred Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.
Barnwell was a very active and involved student at Geneseo during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. She was at Geneseo when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968 and sang at the college's first memorial commemoration. She has made several visits to Geneseo recently, including in 2011 to help Geneseo celebrate the life and legacy of King by conducting a campus/community sing.
Among other positions, Barnwell was project director at Gallaudet University and worked at Children’s Hospital National Medical Center. She also was a professor of speech pathology in the College of Dentistry at Howard University.
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