Noted sound artist, award-winning writer and producer and UGA alumnus Fred Newman will be on campus Feb. 22-25 as a Willson Center for Humanities and Arts Visiting Artist and will deliver a lecture in the Chapel.
Newman, who specializes in sound effects and voice-over work and is the “sound behind the skits” on NPR’s long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion, will deliver his lecture, “Growing Up Weird” as part of his week in Athens. It takes place at 4 p.m. Feb. 25 in the Chapel. It is free and open to the public.
Newman was nominated as a visiting artist by Hugh Ruppersburg, Franklin College senior associate dean, who also is a member of the English department.
In addition to his public lecture, Newman will visit with students in English, creative writing, speech communication and theatre and film studies.
Newman earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from UGA in 1974 and an M.B.A. from Harvard after that. But as a feature article on Newman in Georgia Magazine (March 2007) points out, his passion is educational programming.
He writes and stars in the Emmy award-winning Between the Lions, a PBS series that teaches children to read.
He is currently working on a PBS show for children to be called Fred, and each year he serves for a week as guest artist for underprivileged children, usually in Georgia or Alabama schools.