Inspirational Person of the Week: Gennevieve Brown-Kibble

In the summer of 2009 I was just out of high school and was a self-conscious, awkward music nerd with no social life. I was also a deeply frustrated composer because I couldn’t get anybody to perform my music. With no clear direction for my life and no motivation to start college, I resigned myself to simply trying to find a job. I decided to try to find work as a pianist—largely because I had an aversion to manual labor. One day at the music building at Southern Adventist University I saw a notice hanging on the bulletin board: “Accompanist Needed for University Choirs. If interested contact Gennevieve Brown-Kibble, Director of Choral Activities.” She could scarcely have expected much from the gaunt teenager with wild, greasy hair who showed up at her office door the next day to arrange an audition. But she was very gracious, and she listened to me play.

Apparently she liked what she heard, because she hired me on the spot, even though I wasn’t even a college student. In my mind, I wasn’t much of anything; I felt like a flake. But Dr. Kibble believed in me, and that was a great boost to my self-esteem. The experience I gained working for her was invaluable. I loved seeing her in action. The vast majority of the choir members were not music majors and most had no vocal training, but the collective sound she enabled them to make was absolutely astonishing to me.

From Dr. Kibble I learned how important expectations are: If we think, They’re not trained, so they aren’t capable of much, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. But they can do great things, greater than any of them can imagine, if we believe that they can—and if we refuse to settle for anything less. It doesn’t involve any coddling; it just means showing up and getting to work. She’s so efficient in rehearsal that she literally doesn’t leave the singers any time to think, I can’t do this. And, by the end of the rehearsal, they’ve done something amazing. The uncommon vitality of the choral singing they in turn share with the community enriches the lives of all who hear it; it certainly enriched the life of their nerdy accompanist in 2009, and it was because of Dr. Kibble that I became fully sold on the idea of pursuing a career in choral music.

One day I worked up my courage and sheepishly enquired if she would be willing to look at some of my choral compositions, afraid that I would be met with the same lack of interest many others had shown. “I would love to!,” she said, and when I showed her my work she radiated genuine enthusiasm. In the years that followed, I would often drop by her office and play my newest creations for her. Of course, I was always secretly hoping that she would program them, but I also found that I just needed somebody to care about them—and she always did.  In the years that have since gone by, Dr. Kibble has programed more of my compositions than anyone else. I’m immensely grateful to her for believing in me, and for her commitment to using the powerful medium of choral singing as a force for good in the world. 

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For more on Gennevieve Brown-Kibble, click here.

This is the first in a series of articles about people who have changed my life for the better. For some background information on what inspired me to write this series, click here.