Salute to Faculty Excellence Awards Celebration

Hosted by Faculty Success with generous support from the UNT Foundation, the Salute to Faculty Excellence Awards Celebration is hosted each spring to honor the recipients of UNT's highest faculty awards. This event is just one of the many ways UNT recognizes the dedicated faculty members whose innovative research, scholarly/creative activity, pedagogy, and service continue our university's tradition of prestige. Faculty are notified early in the spring term with their SFE award application decision.

The 2025 Salute to Faculty Excellence Awards Celebration was hosted April 17, 2025, at the Monroe Pearson in Denton. This ceremony featured a special performance by five-time affiliated Grammy award-winning French jazz violinist Scott Tixier, associate professor of jazz violin and director of the Jazz String Lab Band in UNT's renowned College of Music.

About Scott Tixier

Professor Tixier has performed, recorded and toured with such jazz legends and music icons as Stevie Wonder, Kenny Barron, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Ed Sheeran, Cassandra Wilson, Coldplay, Chris Potter, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Natalie Cole, Anthony Braxton, Ariana Grande and many others. In addition to performing in and out of the jazz world, Tixier is known for his work on motion picture scores such as The Lion King, John Wick, Charlie’s Angels and TV shows including "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" as well as the previous format with David Letterman, "Late Night with Seth Meyers," "America's Got Talent" and most recently with Netflix for Spike Lee's new film Da 5 Bloods in collaboration with composer Terence Blanchard (released in 2020). In 2022, Tixier was the featured soloist for Jon Batiste's American Symphony premiere at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Watch his TEDxUNT talk on the value of improvisation and how he approaches every mistake as an opportunity to create new ideas: