East Tennessee State University will welcome alumna and award-winning bluegrass artist Becky Buller to campus this month for a lecture exploring the intersection of music, mental health and healing as part of the university’s Evening of Health, Wellness, and the Arts series.
An Evening of Health, Wellness, and the Arts is part of the ETSU College of Public Health’s Leading Voices in Public Health lecture series, which brings internationally recognized experts to campus to discuss a variety of topics impacting health and well-being.
Buller’s lecture, “A Year of Jubilee: Healing the Mental Health Conversations Behind our Music,” will reflect on her most recent album, “Jubilee." It will take place on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. at the ETSU Martin Center for the Arts.
“Jubilee” debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Album Chart when it was released in 2024 and offers a deeply personal song cycle exploring her lifelong journey with depression and anxiety, and the resilience that carried her through.
The 2001 ETSU graduate has written songs for three Grammy Award-winning bluegrass albums, has 10 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards and was the first woman to be named IBMA Fiddler of the Year.
Last year, she was named ETSU’s 2025 Distinguished Alumna in the Arts.
The 11th Evening of Health, Wellness, and the Arts is sponsored by the College of Public Health, College of Arts and Sciences, National Alumni Association, Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, Department of Music and Department of Appalachian Studies.
“Over the years we've had a lot of different types of performers – musicians, comedians, filmmakers, all sorts of folks – and the common theme has always been, ‘What can people from arts and health backgrounds learn from each other?’" said Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health. “It has been a magnificent opportunity to bring in performers who can explore the interface of the arts and human health and wellness.”
As Appalachia’s flagship institution, ETSU regularly brings elite talent to the region, and will host its annual Festival of Ideas later this month – an initiative that began in 2019 to bring thought leaders from the region and beyond to campus.
An Evening of Health, Wellness, and the Arts began in 2010, an idea that followed Wykoff being approached by the director of ETSU’s Martin School of the Arts for his thoughts on a play.
“It started when David Nathan Schwartz approached the director of the Martin School of the Arts at the time about showing his one-act play about his own experience with a brain tumor, and she asked me what I thought of it,” said Wykoff.
“That sort of led to this idea that maybe we should really be more consciously thinking about the overlap between two of ETSU’s strongest areas: the arts and health,” Wykoff continued.
Wykoff, who announced his plans to retire this year after the spring semester, said bringing in world-class talent through the lecture series is not only a boost for students but also for the region.
“If I were a student of public health today, I’d go back and watch as many of those recordings as possible, because they do cover most of the pressing issues facing our world today,” Wykoff said of previous Leading Voices in Public Health lectures, which are archived on the college's website.
An Evening of Health, Wellness, and the Arts will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, in the Powell Recital Hall of the Martin Center for the Arts. It is free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/4kpxtSr.
