Throughout summer 2021, senior Adam Martin was part of a team that transformed the Crawford and Marlene Taylor Recording Studio into a more efficient and updated creative space in the Hill Music Building. The renovation was just one way Martin has given back to Birmingham-Southern’s music programs.

“I was inspired by the amount of positive change one or two students can make on their environment,” Martin says, who was elected president of the Association of Music Students after this project. “I did this so I could keep improving our music building and give other aspiring musicians a home even better than the one I was given.”

A music major with a vocal performance distinction from Birmingham, Martin chose BSC because of the  Department of Music. In addition to being a leader in the Association of Music Students, he is a member of the Concert Choir and Hilltop Singers.

“My favorite class so far has been vocal pedagogy, or the study of teaching people how to sing,” Martin says. “It is awesome to get a very detailed understanding of how the voice works in a technical sense and then apply it to my own singing and feel the improvement, whether it be in choir or in my own voice lessons.”

He is a fitting recipient of the Barbara Fenn Kirby Endowed Scholarship, which was established in 1985 by Dr. Taylor H. Kirby, Jr. ’49 through a bequest to honor his wife. Mrs. Kirby, like Martin and many musicians and performers who have studied on the Hilltop, demonstrated a passion for music throughout her life.

Kirby earned her bachelor’s degree in music from Samford University in 1954 before living in Paris, France, and Oxford, England, and then settling with her family in Gainesville, Florida, where Dr. Kirby practiced medicine for many years.

In Gainesville, Mrs. Kirby taught piano and was involved with several local, state, and national music teacher and organist societies. She also served as assistant organist at First United Methodist Church of Gainesville.

Her legacy lives on at BSC, where Dr. Kirby earned his degree and joined more than 15 other family members across four generations who graduated from the Hilltop, including his father, Taylor Herman Kirby, Sr. ’24, and their daughter Elizabeth Kirby Kendrick ’82.

Through the endowed scholarship, the Kirby family celebrates the College’s impact on their lives and honors the passion for music that Mrs. Kirby shares with many BSC students.

“Scholarships have allowed me to not worry as much about the pressure of financing going to college,” Martin says. “They’ve allowed me to pursue what I’ve wanted to do, rather than needing a job while I am in school to pay for it all.”

If you want to know how to create a lasting legacy on the Hilltop, or if you have already included BSC in your long-term plans, please let us know at [email protected] or (205) 226-4909.