Stephen Goacher serves as Professor of Music in Howard Payne University’s School of Education & Fine Arts. With 55 years of experience as a college professor, Goacher brings an extraordinary depth of musical knowledge, performance experience, and teaching expertise to HPU. His career has included faculty appointments at Stephen F. Austin State University, Kansas State University, Northern Kentucky University, Front Range College in Fort Collins, and Howard Payne University, where he has served since 1999.
Goacher teaches flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, and saxophone, and he directs the HPU Jazz Ensemble. He also teaches courses in jazz theory, jazz history, and Music Appreciation. When asked to identify a favorite course, he compares the question to being asked to choose a favorite child. For Goacher, each course presents a different challenge and a different blessing, making every teaching experience unique and meaningful.
One of the aspects Goacher values most about teaching at HPU is the opportunity to share the musical legacy he received from legendary musicians of the twentieth century with whom he studied or was professionally associated. He enjoys the variety of topics he teaches and the opportunity to pass along both technical knowledge and artistic traditions to younger generations of musicians.
Goacher’s passion for music is rooted in his belief that musical talent is a gift from God. He sees young musicians making music as an expression of that gift coming alive in their spirit. For him, helping students develop their artistic ability, technical skill, and musical understanding is both a professional responsibility and a special opportunity entrusted to him by God.
Goacher earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received the Atwater-Kent Outstanding Musician Award Honors in 1966 and 1967. He later earned a Master of Music in Woodwinds from Texas Christian University, where he also served as Assistant Director of Bands. He completed 55 hours toward a Doctor of Musical Arts in Woodwinds at Indiana University and became the first doctoral candidate in music there permitted to present doctoral recitals on any instrument of his choice.
His professional performance career includes recordings with the Eugene Rousseau Saxophone Quartet and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, including a Telarc recording of the music of George Gershwin that spent 13 weeks in Billboard magazine’s Top 10 for Classical Music. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, appeared as a soloist on multiple woodwind instruments with the Fort Collins Wind Symphony, lectured and performed for the North American Saxophone Alliance, and recorded the gospel and spiritual album Leaving A Testimony.
Outside of the classroom, Goacher enjoys traveling and visiting his children and grandchildren in Colorado and Texas. He is involved with Brownwood Church.
Goacher’s office is located in DMC 302. Through decades of teaching, performance, and mentorship, he continues to share his musical legacy while helping students grow in artistry, discipline, and appreciation for the gift of music.
