Bob Avant, Adjunct Lecturer and Director of the Baylor Bronze Handbell Ensemble, to Retire After Sixteen Years at Baylor University

After sixteen years of service to the Baylor University School of Music, Bob Avant will retire at the close of the spring semester. Avant joined the Baylor School of Music in fall 2010 as Adjunct Lecturer and Director of the Baylor Bronze Handbell Ensemble. During his tenure, he led the Baylor Bronze with a commitment to musical excellence, precision, and student growth while helping generations of students experience the collaborative art of handbell ringing.

“For the last sixteen years, Professor Bob Avant has nurtured the Baylor Bronze to be a stellar collegiate handbell ensemble,” said Randall Bradley, DMA, interim dean of the Baylor School of Music. “He is a masterful teacher, recruiter, conductor, and mentor. Baylor Bronze concerts are distinguished by immense precision, seasoned musicality, and extraordinary passion for the art of handbell ringing.”

In addition to directing the Baylor Bronze, Avant taught courses and mini-sessions designed to prepare church music students to lead handbell programs in educational and church settings. These courses provided students with training in handbell skills and pedagogy while strengthening their professional preparation and ministry opportunities.

Avant’s professional career has included service in music education, educational technology, church music, conducting, and audio engineering. Before coming to Baylor, he served for thirteen years as a band director in Killeen and Austin ISDs and later worked for seventeen years as an Educational Technology Consultant for the Education Service Center, Region 13. He continues serving as director of the auditioned community-based ensemble, the Austin Handbell Ensemble, now for over thirty years as well as his church handbell ensemble. Avant remains active as a handbell clinician, recording and audio engineer for handbell music publishers and as a special technology consultant to school districts.

A longtime member of Handbell Musicians of America, Avant has frequently been selected to present sessions at the organization’s national seminars on a variety of handbell-related topics. In 2023, he completed and published Advancing Towards Excellence in Handbell Ensembles, a comprehensive resource for handbell directors.

Reflecting on his time at Baylor, Avant expressed gratitude for both the students and faculty of the School of Music. “There is great joy attached to belonging to the instructional faculty in the Baylor School of Music,” Avant said. “The environment begins with the students’ desire to be there to learn and to achieve a degree. This is matched with a faculty that has as its mission to do all that it can to provide the instruction and guidance to each student such that they accomplish more than they thought they could.” Avant described his approach to teaching as one rooted in respect, trust, compassion, and continual improvement. “A particular personal goal is to instill in each student the core understanding that perfection is never achieved if one continues to seek and make an incremental improvement in each successive effort,” Avant said. “By continually pushing the goal higher, the potential ceiling of success is removed and replaced with higher levels of accomplishment.”

Throughout his time at Baylor, Avant collaborated with faculty and ensembles, including performances with Lynne Gackle and the Baylor A Cappella Choir as well as a collaborative concert with Michael Alexander and the Baylor Campus Orchestra.

Looking back on his years at Baylor, Avant said he is most proud of the growth he witnessed in students through their participation in the ensemble. “I am most proud to say that every student who came into my group recognized that they learned and improved through their time in this ensemble, both in handbell skills and in a greater understanding of music” Avant said.

The Baylor School of Music extends its gratitude to Professor Bob Avant for his faithful service, leadership, and dedication to Baylor students and the art of handbell ringing.