Richards Stepping Down as IU Music Dean

Gwyn Richards and Jeremy Allen

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Gwyn Richards, the David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, will step down in June. Executive Associate Dean Jeremy Allen will become interim dean in July. Richards has served as the school’s leader for two decades and will return to faculty in choral conducting. Allen has served in his role since 2008.

Richards studied choral conducting with Julius Herford at the then-IU School of Music. After leadership positions with McGill University, Rice University and the University of Southern California, he returned to the School of Music in 1992 as director of admissions. He later served as the associate dean of admissions and financial aid for the Jacobs School, being named interim dean in 1999 and dean in 2001.  

Allen is a jazz musician and a Grammy-nominated bassist who has performed in the United States and abroad with such jazz luminaries as Fred Hersch, Mike Stern, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Bob Brookmeyer and George Garzone. 

A search for a permanent leader of the school will begin in the next academic year.