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LVOV, Alexei Fyodorovich. b. 5 June 1798, Reval (now Tallinn), Estonia; d. Kovno (Now Kaunus), Lithuania, 28 December 1870. Lvov was the son of Prince Fyodor Petrovich Lvov, the director of music at the Court Chapel at St Petersburg. He served as an officer in the Imperial army, rising to the rank of General, and becoming an aide-de-camp to the Tsar. He succeeded his father as musical director at St Petersburg in 1837, remaining in post until 1861, when he was forced to retire owing to...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#Abraham Dumisani Maraire'*
WIDDOP, Accepted. b. Ovenden, West Yorkshire, 1750 (baptized 21 October); d. 9 March, 1801. Widdop was an amateur musician and composer strongly associated with Methodism in the Halifax area of West Yorkshire; he was baptised at Ovenden. Lightwood describes him as 'a cloth worker by trade, and an amateur musician of considerable fame in his day' (1938, p. 59). He seems to have spent his life around Halifax, principally in the small villages of Illingworth and Ovenden.
Many of his tunes are...
GOODSON, Albert A. b. Los Angeles, October 1933; d. Los Angeles, December 2003. Goodson was brought up in the Pentecostal church. At the age of twelve he joined St Paul Baptist Church where he apparently received his only formal musical training, and was introduced to gospel music by the church's director of music, J. Earle Hines (1916-60) and pianist Gwendolyn Cooper-Lightner (1925-1999), who in 1946 founded the church's Echoes of Eden Choir, and with others established St Paul's as a center...
BRUMLEY, Albert Edward. b. near Spiro, Oklahoma, 29 October 1905; d. Powell, Missouri, 15 November 1977. Brumley was born on a cotton farm. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes: 'Music, both sacred and secular, formed an important part of Brumley's childhood. His parents were firmly committed Campbellite Protestants, [whose worship excluded instruments] but his father was also a noted fiddler, and his mother enjoyed singing parlor songs. Music was integral to the family's weekly church gatherings...
TOZER, Albert Edmonds. b. Little Sutton, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, 13 January 1857; d. Steyning, near Brighton, Sussex, February 1910. He was educated at the City of London School, and the Royal Academy of Music. A brilliant young organist, he was elected FRCO at the age of 19. He was made an ARCM in 1885. He completed a BMus at Durham University and a DPhil at Oxford University.
As a young man Tozer was an organist at two Anglican parishes on the south coast, St Mary Magdalene at St Leonard's...
MALOTTE, Albert Hay. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19 May 1895; d. Hollywood, California, 16 November 1964. He is known primarily as the composer of 'The Lord's Prayer' (see Malotte's Lord's Prayer*), found in several hymnals with tune name MALOTTE.
The 1910 US Federal Census indicates that Malotte's father, Charles William Malotte (1874-1953), was the son of John B. Malott (without an e), born in France. Charles owned a bookbindery in Philadelphia; his name and company occur in Philadelphia...
PEACE, Albert Lister. b. Huddersfield, Yorkshire, 26 January 1844; d. Blundellsands, near Liverpool, 14 March 1912. Peace was a child prodigy, largely self-taught. He was organist of Holmfirth Parish Church, near Huddersfield, at the age of nine, and thereafter organist of four other Yorkshire churches. On moving to Glasgow, he continued to work as a church organist, and he was appointed to Glasgow Cathedral in 1879. The Church of Scotland had lifted the ban on organs in 1865, and Peace was...
WYTON, Alec (Alexander Francis). b. London, 3 August 1921; d. Danbury, Connecticut, 18 March 2007. After his parents separated, he received his early encouragement from an aunt in Northampton who suggested he learned the piano and organ. When war broke out in 1939, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals but was discharged early owing to a duodenal ulcer. He then went on to the Royal Academy of Music and, in 1943, he became organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford (BA 1945) where he studied history...
BRENT SMITH, Alexander. b. Brookethorpe, near Gloucester, 8 October 1889; d. Brookethorpe, 3 July 1950. He received his education at the King's School, Worcester, and was a chorister in Worcester Cathedral. After studying with Ivor Atkins, he became his assistant organist. In 1912 he was appointed Director of Music at Lancing College, Sussex, where Peter Pears was among his pupils. He left Lancing in 1934 and taught at Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham. He served as an enthusiastic member of...
EWING, Alexander. b. Old Machar, Aberdeen, 3 January 1830; d. Taunton, Somerset, 11 July 1895. He studied law at Marischal College, Aberdeen, but gave it up to study music at Heidelberg, Germany. He joined the army in 1855, serving in the Crimean war, and became a professional soldier, serving in various stations including China and Australia and rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He retired in 1889, and lived at Taunton, Somerset.
Ewing composed part-songs, anthems, and other pieces,...
REINAGLE, Alexander Robert. b. Brighton, 21 August 1799; d. Kidlington, near Oxford, 6 April 1877. He was brought up in Oxford where his father, the cellist and composer Joseph Reinagle, had settled. After studying with his father he worked as a teacher of stringed instruments in Oxford and was organist of St Peter-in-the-East (1822-53). During the 1860s he was highly active in Oxford music-making and worked closely with John Stainer* who, between 1860 and 1872, was organist of Magdalen...
SCHREINER, Christian Alexander Ferdinand. b. Steinbühl, a suburb of Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Bavaria, Germany, 31 July 1901; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 15 September 1987. Schreiner was associated with the Mormon Tabernacle as an organ recitalist for many years and was the Chief Organist from 1965 to 1987. As a member of the General Music Committee of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), he assisted in the preparation of the 1948 LDS hymnal, which includes 10 of his hymn...
SMITH, Alfred Morton. b. Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, 20 May 1879; d. Brigantine, New Jersey, 26 February 1971. Smith was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1901) and the Philadelphia Divinity School (BD 1905, STD 1911). He was ordained in the American Protestant Episcopal Church (deacon 1905, priest 1906), and served curacies at St Peter's, Philadelphia, and Long Beach, California. He was a priest at St Matthias', Los Angeles (1906-16), a chaplain to the United States army during the...
FEDAK, Alfred Victor. b. Elizabeth, New Jersey, 4 July 1953. Fedak was educated at the Pingry School and Hope College, Holland, Michigan. He graduated with degrees in organ performance and music history in 1975. An MA in organ performance was conferred in 1981 by Montclair State College (now Montclair State University, New Jersey). He undertook additional studies at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, The Eastman School of Music, New York, The Institute for European Studies,...
PARKER, Alice. b. Boston, 16 December 1925; d. Hawley, Massachusetts, 24 December 2023. Distinguished, widely celebrated composer, conductor, author and teacher, Parker began composing at the age of eight, and completed her first orchestral score in high school. She studied at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, majoring in music performance and composition (BA 1947), and the Juilliard School of Music, New York City (MS 1949), where her teachers included Robert Shaw (1916-1999), Julius...
ROBERTSON, Alison Margaret (née Malloch). b. Glasgow, 22 February 1940. She was the younger twin of the Revd. Jack and Nancy Malloch. In 1948 the family moved to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), when her father became a Church of Scotland missionary principal of the Teacher Training College at Akropong. Her mother ran a baby clinic once a week and Alison, at the age of 10, was made responsible for the small wounds part of the clinic, cleaning and dressing fresh and infected wounds sustained by the...
HUSBERG, Amanda. b. Chicago, 7 December 1940; d. New York City, 15 February 2021. Amanda Husberg graduated from Concordia Teacher's College (Seward, Nebraska, B.S., 1962) where she studied education, and organ performance with Jan Bender*. Subsequently, she completed her study in early childhood education from Hunter College (New York City, M.S., 1971).
From July 1964 onwards she was the Director of Music at St. John the Evangelist Lutheran Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Concurrent with her...
PILSBURY, Amos. b. Newbury, Massachusetts, 15 October 1772; d. Charleston, South Carolina, 19 October 1812. Pilsbury was a tunebook compiler, composer, and schoolmaster. He is known in hymnology primarily for his compilation The United States' Sacred Harmony (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1799), the earliest tunebook known to include the tunes KEDRON and CHARLESTON. Pilsbury also published a collection of hymn texts, The Sacred Songster (Charleston: G. M. Bounetheau,...
GRANT, Amy. b. Augusta, Georgia, 25 November 1960. A prominent Christian song-writer and pop singer, Grant attended Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina (1978-80) and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1980-81). She grew up in a conservative Church of Christ congregation that did not believe musical instruments were appropriate for worship. Influenced by charismatic theology and practice via Don Finto (1930-) and Nashville's independent Belmont Church, she began writing...
CHAPIN, Amzi. b. Springfield, Massachusetts, 2 March 1768; d. Northfield, Ohio, 19 February 1835. The name is pronounced Am'zeye Chay'pin. Hymn tunes attributed to Amzi in one collection often appear elsewhere attributed to one of his brothers, Lucius Chapin* or Aaron Chapin (1753-1838). In some cases, 'attributed to' should be taken to mean 'arranged by' or 'obtained from'. It was common for tunebook compilers to seek adaptations of existing tunes, and as a result, many tunes were assigned...
DAVISSON, Ananias. b. Shenandoah County, Virginia, 2 February 1780; d. Rockingham County Virginia, 21 October 1857. Davisson is best known as the compiler of the fasola tunebooks Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, five editions), and A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia, three editions).
Little is known about Davisson prior to 1816. His successes beginning that year as a printer of tunebooks suggest that he may have been apprenticed to a printer. Only slightly...
CROUCH, Andraé Edward. b. San Francisco, California, 1 July 1942; d. Los Angeles, California, 8 January 2015. Andraé Crouch began performing as a teenager in his church, directed a choir at a Teen Challenge drug rehabilitation center, and in 1960 formed a singing group, the COGICS, for his Church of God in Christ denomination (Holiness/Pentecostal). He studied at the L.I.F.E. Bible College and Valley Junior College in Los Angeles where in 1965 he founded the 'Andraé Crouch and the Disciples'...
DONALDSON, Andrew James. b. Matheson, Ontario, Canada, July 22, 1951. Pastoral musician Andrew Donaldson is a composer, hymn-writer, and leader of congregational song, the third of seven children of missionaries in northern Ontario. He was educated in French and English studies at Glendon College, York University (BA, 1974), and studied classical guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT, Classical Guitar Performance, 1979).
From 1982 until 2010 he combined directing music at Beaches...
LAW, Andrew. b. Milford, Connecticut, 21 March 1749; d. Cheshire, Connecticut, 13 July 1821. Law, a grandson of Jonathan Law (1674-1750), Governor of the Colony of Connecticut (1741-1750), was a tunebook compiler, clergyman, and composer. His Select Harmony: containing in a plain and concise manner, the rules of singing, together with a collection of psalm tunes, hymns and anthems (Cheshire, Connecticut, 1779) became a major influence among many subsequent collections used by singing masters...
THOMSON, Andrew Mitchell. b. Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, 11 July 1779; d. Edinburgh, 9 February 1831. His father was a minister who moved to Markinch, Fife, in 1785, and Andrew was educated at the parish school there and at the University of Edinburgh (1796-99). He was ordained at Sprouston, Roxburghshire (1802), serving there until 1808. He was then minister of the East Church, Perth (1808-10) and New Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh (1810-14), before becoming the first minister of St George's Church...
MURRAY, Anthony Gregory (monastic name) OSB. b. Fulham, London, 27 February 1905; d. 19 January 1992. He was educated at Westminster Cathedral Choir School (1914-20) and St Benedict's Priory School, Ealing (1920-22). He entered Downside Abbey as a monk in 1922, and read History at Cambridge University (1926-29). He was organist and choirmaster at Downside from 1929 to 1941. He was parish priest at Ealing, (1941-46), Hindley, near Wigan, (1948-52), and Stratton on the Fosse (Downside)...
SHOWALTER, Anthony Johnson. b. Rockingham County, Virginia,1 May 1858; d. Chattanooga, Tennessee, 14 or 15 September 1924. Showalter was perhaps the most prominent sacred-music publisher and music teacher in the southern United States ca. 1890-1920. A publisher of songbooks in seven-shape and standard notation, his companies surpassed The Ruebush-Kieffer Company* in sales and influence and were, in turn, surpassed by the James D. Vaughan* and Stamps-Baxter* companies. He also was known as an...
JOHNSON, Artemas Nixon. b. Middlebury, Vermont, 22 June 1817; d. New Milford, Connecticut, 1 January 1892. A. N. Johnson and his brother James C. Johnson (1820-1895) were musicians, teachers, composers, and publishers of church music. A. N. Johnson's hymn tune MENDOTA (SPEAK GENTLY), with text by Frederick George Lee (1832-1902), appears in several 20th-century hymnals.
Johnson's parents, James Johnson, Sr. (nda) and Anna Ward Johnson (nda) attended the Congregational Church in Middlebury. ...
CLYDE, Arthur G. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 28 December 1940. A prominent United Church of Christ (UCC) musician and editor of The New Century Hymnal (Cleveland, 1995), Clyde attended Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania (BA, in Sociology, 1963), with additional studies at Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, Philadelphia (1963-64, 75-77). He was an English language teacher in Japan under the missions program of the Lutheran Church in America (1965-1968), taught music...
MESSITER, Arthur Henry. b. Frome, Somerset, England, 1 April 1834; d. Manhattan, New York, 2 July 1916. Messiter is remembered for his career as organist and choirmaster of Trinity Church in New York City; for one of the music editions of the Episcopal Hymnal prior to the first authorized music edition; and for the hymn tune MARION.
Although the date of Messiter's birth is sometimes shown as 12 April 1834, an official record shows 1 April 1834 for his birth and 2 May 1834 for his baptism. ...
BROWN, Arthur Henry. b. Brentwood, Essex, 24 July 1830; d. Brentwood, 15 February 1926. A self-taught musician, he grew up in Brentwood playing the organ at the parish church, where, apart from a brief interval as organist in nearby Romford (1853-58), he remained for 40 years (1842-53 and 1858-88). It is not known when he became organist of Sir Anthony Browne's School in Brentwood, although a letter from Brown to the headmaster dated 8th Feb 1918 thanks him for his share 'in the very gratifying...
MANN, Arthur Henry. b. Norwich, 16 May 1850; d. Cambridge, 19 November 1929. He was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and then an articled pupil of Zechariah Buck. He held the positions of organist at St Peter's Church, Wolverhampton (1870), Tettenhall Parish Church (1871) and Beverley Minster (1875) before he was appointed organist of King's College, Cambridge in 1876. He remained in this post for the rest of his life.
Mann did much for Cambridge music. He oversaw the change of regime in which...
HUTCHINGS, Arthur James Bramwell. b. Sunbury-on-Thames, 14 July 1906; d. 13 November 1989. Before the Second World War, in which he served with the Royal Air Force, Hutchings was a schoolmaster and organist, and a contributor to music periodicals. After the war he was Professor of Music at the University of Durham (1947-68) and the University of Exeter (1968-71). He retired to Colyton, Devon. His publications included Schubert (1941, 5th Edition, 1978); Edmund Rubbra (1941), Delius (Paris,...
JONES, Arthur Morris. b. 1899; d. 1980. He was a missionary and musicologist, educated at Keble College, Oxford, and Wells Theological College. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1922, priest 1923) and served curacies at Ashford, Kent (1922-24) and St Michael and All Angels, Maidstone, Kent (1924-28). In 1929 he became a missionary in what was then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. He took up a post as Warden of St Mark's Teachers' Training College, under the auspices of the Universities' Mission to...
SULLIVAN, (Sir) Arthur Seymour. b. London, 13 May 1842; d. London, 22 November 1900. Born in Lambeth, he was the son of an Irish bandmaster. He became a chorister in the Chapel Royal in 1854 and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1856 where he studied under William Sterndale Bennett*. Between 1858 and 1861 he was a student at the Leipzig Conservatory where he gained notable approbation for his incidental music to The Tempest. After returning to England he made his living as an organist in...
SOMERVELL, (Sir) Arthur. b. Windermere, Cumbria, 5 June 1863; d. London, 2 May 1937. Somervell was a composer and educationist, the youngest of six sons and nine children of Robert Miller Somervell, leather merchant and founder of Somervell Brothers (manufacturers of K (for 'Kendal') Shoes), and Anne Wilson. He was educated for one year at Uppingham School (1878-9) and then at King's College, Cambridge (BA 1884), where he also studied composition under Charles Villiers Stanford*. At Stanford's...
WARRELL, Arthur Sydney. b. Farmborough near Bath, 1882; d. Bristol, 12 August 1939. He was educated at Farmborough and at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College in Bristol. He was assistant organist at Bristol Cathedral (where he worked under Hubert Hunt) and was latterly organist of Clifton Parish Church. He was appointed Lecturer in Music at Bristol University in 1909. There he founded the University Choir, Orchestra and Madrigal Singers, and became known for his prowess as an educator....
LOVELACE, Austin C. b. Rutherford, North Carolina, 26 March 1919; d. Denver, Colorado, 25 April 2010. Lovelace spent his entire life in church music. At the age of 15 he began playing organ in a Baptist church in Forest City, North Carolina. He was educated at High Point College in North Carolina (BA 1939) and at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from which he received a masters degree (1941) and a doctor of sacred music degree (1950). While at Union Seminary he studied with T....
WHITE, Benjamin Franklin. b. near Cross Keys, Union County, South Carolina, 20 September 1800; d. Atlanta, Georgia, 5 December 1879. White was the principal compiler, along with Elisha J. King*, of The Sacred Harp*.
Benjamin White was the twelfth child of Robert White (1743?-1843) and Mildred White (1745?-1807). As a result of Mildred's death, Benjamin lived for about 11 years in the household of his brother, Robert White, Jr. (1784-1880). Evidence of family involvement with music is the...
BALASIOS. b. ca. first quarter 17th century; d. before 1700. The priest Balasios, who held the posts of protasekretes (1672) and nomophylax (1680) of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, came from a Peloponnesian family. He studied Byzantine music with Germanos of Neai Patrai*. Balasios was active during the second half of the 17th century: the earliest mention is in the manuscript Panteleimon 1008 (dated before 1660), where he calls himself domestikos. His version of the...
ROSE, Barry Michael. b. Chingford, Essex, 24 May 1934. A choir trainer of quite exceptional gifts, Rose was appointed the first organist of the new and as yet unfinished cathedral at Guildford in March 1960. He built up one of the country's finest cathedral choirs there, and had a similarly beneficial effect on the singing at St Paul's Cathedral (1974-84), where he was initially Sub-Organist and subsequently Master of the Choir. After an interlude as Master of the Choirs at the King's School,...
HARWOOD, Basil. b. Woodhouse, Olveston, Gloucestershire, 11 April 1859; d. Kensington, London, 3 April 1949. He was the eighth son and youngest of nine children of Edward Harwood, banker and JP, and his first wife, Mary Sturge (daughter of Young Sturge of Bristol, the famous Quaker). He entered Trinity College, Oxford in 1878 to study classics and history and also took the B.Mus. degree in 1880, studying theory with C. W. Corfe, choragus to the university. After leaving Oxford he travelled to...
BRITTEN, (Edward) Benjamin. b. Lowestoft, Suffolk, 22 November 1913; d. Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 4 December 1976. Britten was educated at South Lodge Preparatory School, Lowestoft, and at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1930 where his composition tutor was John Ireland*. From 1927, however, he was taught privately by Frank Bridge and these lessons continued throughout his years at the College, where he was also taught the piano by Arthur...
BRODY, Benjamin. b. Portland, Oregon, 2 May 1975. Benjamin Brody, a composer, hymn writer, church musician, and educator, is son of Clark Brody and Barbara Brody (née Finsaas), and one of three siblings. The son of a music teacher and grandson of a pastor, his first experiences in music took place singing together with his family in the car or around the piano at home. He was nurtured in the charismatic tradition. He received his education at Whitworth College, Spokane, Washington, in Music...
CARR, Benjamin. b. London, 12 September 1768; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 24 May 1831. Born in London, Carr was descended from a family of musicians and music publishers from the late 17th century. He studied with his father, Joseph Carr (1739-1819), who operated a music repository in Middle Row, Holborn, and with the composers Samuel Arnold* and Charles Wesley (II)*. Carr was first taken into his father's business, then opened his own shop in London and embarked upon a career as a singer,...
TYAMZASHE, Benjamin John Peter. b. Kimberley, South Africa, 5 September 1890; d. East London, Republic of South Africa, 5 June 1978. Also known affectionately was B-ka-T, Tyamzashe was the son of a Congregational minister in South Africa and a prolific composer of over 200 works (Dargie, 1997). He followed John Knox Bokwe*'s footsteps in adding innovations to the makwaya* style of singing, a choral form often sung by large groups of people in church and civic settings.
Tyamzashe was educated at...
MILGROVE, Benjamin. b. Bath, 1731; d. Bath, 1810. Little is known of Milgrove's life, except that he was precentor and organist of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel at Bath, and the keeper of a fancy goods shop. Wesley Milgate reports that he was a 'proprietor' or investor in John Wesley*'s New King Street Chapel in Bath to the tune of £100, a considerable sum at that time (Songs of the People of God, 1992, p. 293). He ceased to be a proprietor in 1787, perhaps because of the increasing...
ACKLEY, Bentley D. b. Bradford, Pennsylvania, 27 September 1872; d. Winona Lake, Indiana, 3 September 1958. Rising to prominence as pianist for the Billy Sunday and Homer A. Rodeheaver* revival meetings, B. D. Ackley became a prolific composer of gospel songs and editor of gospel hymnals. He was born into a family of musicians in Bradford, Pennsylvania, including his younger brother Alfred Ackley*, who also became a gospel song composer. Their father, Stanley Ackley, served as a Methodist...
FARRELL, Bernadette. b. Altofts, West Yorkshire, 1957. Farrell was educated at King's College London and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She quickly made her mark as one of the founder members of the St Thomas More Group*. She has worked as diocesan music advisor for Southwark and Westminster and as a workshop presenter both in the UK and in the USA. Her ministry flows in to social action and reflects her strong commitment to justice and peace. In addition to her work with the St...
HUIJBERS, Bernard . b. Rotterdam, 24 July 1922; d. Espeilhac, France, 15 April 2003. Huijbers studied under Ernest Mulder during his Jesuit course of training, graduating as a schoolmaster in 1960 and serving (in the tradition of many continental liturgical musicians) as school master and master of music at the St Ignatius College, Amsterdam, until 1969. More importantly he became associated with the Dominicuskerk where he collaborated with the librettist Huub Oosterhuis*. He left the Jesuits...
KYAMANYWA, Bernard. b. Kagera Region, Tanganyika (now Tanzania); 10 May 1938. A teacher, Lutheran pastor, and hymnwriter, Kyamanywa studied to be a schoolteacher at Kigarama Teacher's College (Bukoba, Tanzania) where he received his basic musical training. He continued his study at Lutheran Theological College (now Makumira University College) in Arusha (Diploma in Theology, 1968). He became known for his exceptional mastery of Hebrew, a skill that earned him the position as a representative of...
MASSEY, Bernard Stanford. b. Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, 22 June 1927; d. Redhill, Surrey, 28 October 2011. He was educated at Watford Boys' Grammar School and Queen Mary College, University of London. From 1952 to 1984 he was successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, and Tutor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, University College, London; he was the author of three text-books.
Massey was the editor of the Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland from 1975 to...
POLMAN, Bert Frederick. b. Rozenburg, the Netherlands, 28 August 1945; d. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1 July 2013. Polman spent part of his childhood in Indonesia with his missionary parents. After the family immigrated to western Canada, Polman received his education at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa (BA, 1968); University of Minnesota (MA, 1969; PhD in Musicology, 1981); and did postgraduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He taught music at the Ontario...
TOURS, Berthold. b. Rotterdam, 17 December 1838; d. Hammersmith, London, 11 March 1897. His father, Barthélemy Tours, was organist of St Laurence Church, Rotterdam. After early lessons with his father and from Johannes Verhulst he studied at the Brussels and Leipzig Conservatoires before spending two years in Russia (1859-61) in the service of Prince George Galitsin. In 1861 he settled in London as a violinist, writer and teacher and in 1862 was appointed organist of the Swiss Church, Holborn....
LUARD SELBY, Bertram. b. Ightham, Kent, 12 February 1853; d. Winterton, Brigg, Lincolnshire, 26 December 1918 (usually known as 'Luard Selby' with or without hyphen; he introduced the hyphen, ca. 1905). He studied under Reinecke and Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatorium (where Stanford* was a fellow pupil) before returning to England in 1876, when he became organist at St Barnabas', Marylebone, and Highgate School. He was organist of Salisbury Cathedral (1881-83), before he decided to move,...
PULKINGHAM, Betty Carr. b. Burlington, North Carolina, 25 August 1928; d. Austin,Texas, 9 May 2019. Her mother was a lifelong Baptist and her father had Scottish Presbyterian roots, but joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. She attributed her ecumenical approach to her early experience of both traditions.
She grew up with music around her at school and home. She learned the piano from the age of eight, and from the age of ten was playing for the hymns at her Sunday School. Later, she was one...
HOWARD, Beverly Ann. b. New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 22 February 1951. A professor in church music, researcher in hymnology, journal editor, member of hymnal committees, church musician, and organist, Howard received degrees from University of Oklahoma in organ performance (BM, 1973, MM, 1974) and the University of North Texas in organ performance, music theory, and harpsichord (DMA, 1986). She served as organist for forty years in two congregations in Riverside, California, First Christian...
Gaither, Bill (William James). b. Alexandria, Indiana, 28 March 1936. Gaither was one of four children of the marriage of George W. (1913-2005) and Lela (née Hartwell) (1914-2001). The farming family attended the Church of God in Alexandria, a restoration group with Wesleyan holiness roots headquartered in Anderson, Indiana, (not related to Pentecostal denominations with the same name). Early on Gaither studied piano and organ, 'performing wherever he could in recitals and as an accompanist'...
TAMBLYN, Bill. b. Birmingham, 5 December 1941. He was educated at University College, Durham, during which time he began to study plainchant with Fr Laurence Hollis at Ushaw College and converted to Roman Catholicism. On leaving university, he became, first, cantor and then for ten years, director of music at Our Lady of Grace and St Edward, Chiswick, West London. Tamblyn edited Church Music until 1974, and during the late 1960s he travelled with John Michael East (director of the Church Music...
HEARN, Billy Ray. b. Honey Grove, Texas, 26 April 1929; d. Nashville, Tennessee, 15 April 2015. A visionary and innovator in the Christian music industry, Hearn was primarily known as the founder of Sparrow Records, currently a part of the Capitol Christian Music Group family of record labels and distributors owned by Universal Music Group, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Vivendi. He grew up in Beaumont, Texas, joined the US Navy after high school, and upon discharge in 1948 he studied...
WIANT, Bliss Mitchell. b. Dalton, Ohio, 1 February 1895; d. Delaware, Ohio, 1 October 1975. Wiant [Chinese name Fan Tian-xian] was a Methodist Episcopal Church [MEC] missionary from 1923 to 1951. He was an authority on Chinese music, a choral director, composer and arranger, hymnal editor, pastor, and teacher. His widely acclaimed settings of newly written indigenous Chinese Christian hymns to traditional Chinese melodies are an abiding contribution to 20th-century contextualized Chinese...
HURD, Bob (Robert L.). b. Lakewood, Ohio; August 9, 1950. Bob Hurd is a Catholic composer, teacher, liturgist, and author who is known for his many English-language and bilingual compositions in Spanish and English. He studied at St John's Seminary College (Camarillo, California; BA 1973) and De Paul University (Chicago; MA 1976; PhD 1980). Hurd has served in several academic and pastoral settings including Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), the Franciscan School of Theology (Berkeley,...
KILPATRICK, Bob. b. Louisville, Kentucky, 25 October 1952. Born into a Scottish-American Air Force chaplain's home, Kilpatrick became a Christian in 1968, and from that time on has devoted himself to a troubadour ministry of contemporary Christian music. He is a solo performer, song writer, broadcaster, and record producer. Think, Pray, Groove (2003), and This Changes Everything (2006) document his style of music: a mix of folk, gospel and progressive rock. 'In my life, Lord, be glorified'* is...
ORD, Boris. b. Bristol, 9 July 1897; d. Cambridge, 30 December 1961. The son of Clement Ord, a lecturer in the University of Bristol, and Joanna Anthes, a German, he was christened 'Bernhardt', but was invariably known as 'Boris'. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and the Royal College of Music (1914-1920, interrupted by war service in the Royal Flying Corps). At the RCM he was taught by Walter Parratt*. In 1920 he moved to Cambridge as organ scholar of Corpus Christi College, where...
BROWN, Brenton. b. Port Elizabeth, South Africa, 1 July 1973. Raised in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, Brown attended South African College Schools, studied law at the University of Cape Town, and then received a Rhodes Scholarship to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at the University of Oxford (1996-98), where he also received a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Theology (1998-99).
Brown's involvement in worship leadership began during his time at the University of Cape Town,...
NESWICK, Bruce. b. Kennewick, Washington State, 20 October 1956. Neswick received degrees in organ performance from Pacific Lutheran University (BM,1978), and Yale University (MM, 1980). He has won three prizes in organ improvisation, and is a Fellow and active member of the American Guild of Organists*. He has directed music in prominent Episcopal churches including the Christ Church Cathedral, Lexington, Kentucky: St Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, New York; Cathedral Church of St John the Divine,...
DOUGLAS, Charles Winfred. b. Oswego, New York, 15 Feb 1867; d. Santa Rosa, California, 18 Jan 1944. Douglas was raised as a Presbyterian. His first contact with the Episcopal Church came in 1888 as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral, Syracuse, New York, while a student at Syracuse University (BM, 1901). He attended St. Andrew's Divinity School, Syracuse; and Matthews Hall, Denver, Colorado. He was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church 1893, priest 1899, serving as a minor Canon of St John's...
MALAN, (Henri Abraham) Caesar (César). b. Geneva, Switzerland, 7 July 1787; d. Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, 18 May 1864. Descended from Waldensians (see Waldensian hymnody*), Malan's family originally settled at Mérindol in Provence, but were dispersed owing to religious persecution in 1714. Educated in Geneva, Malan was at first pastor in the National Church of Geneva and in accord with its near-Unitarian character. Around 1820, he became pastor of a separatist group in Geneva.
Malan was a...
PRICE, Carl Fowler. b. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 16 May 1881; d. New York City, 12 April 1948. Pioneering hymnologist, historian, author, prominent layperson in The Methodist Episcopal Church, Price attended Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (BA music, 1902; MA, 1932), and worked as a general insurance broker in New York City from 1902 to 1946. He served as secretary of The National Board of the Epworth League, and historian of the Methodist Historical Society.
Price was a founder...
SCHALK, Carl Flentge. b. Des Plaines, Illinois, 26 September 1929; d. River Forest, Illinois, 24 January 2021. Schalk attended Concordia Teachers' College (now Concordia University) in River Forest, Illinois (BS, 1952), the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (MM, 1958) and Concordia Theological Seminary in St Louis, Missouri (MA, 1965).
After serving at Zion Lutheran Church in Wausau, Wisconsin (1952-1958), Schalk was a music director for the International Lutheran Hour (1958-1965),...
ROSAS, Carlos. b. Linares, Nuevo León, Mexico, 4 November 1939; d. San Antonio, Texas, 12 February 2020. Catholic hymn writer, composer, church musician, and lecturer, and son of Anastacio Rosas and Isabel Delgado, he was the tenth of twelve children. He and his wife María Teresa de León (1940-2011), a citizen of the United States, were married on December 26, 1965. He resided in San Antonio, Texas, near his five children, ten grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Rosas's compositions...
YOUNG, Carlton Raymond ('Sam'). b. Hamilton, Ohio, 25 April 1926; d. Nashville, Tennessee, 21 May 2023. He was the son of J. Otis Young , a pastor, and Mary Leibrook, an elementary school teacher. Following his mother's death he was raised by maternal grand parents, who started his piano lessons at age six. He attended Fairfield High School in Butler County, Ohio, where music was a requirement not an elective, and where he played brass instruments and string bass. He studied at Cincinnati...
MILLIGAN, Carman Hilliard. b. York, Ontario, 20 March 1909; d. Ottawa, 14 April 1999. He was educated at the University of Toronto (MusBac in composition, 1937), and the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York State (MA in musicology, 1956). In 1982 he was made an Honorary Fellow in the Canadian College of Organists. He served as organist and choirmaster at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Ottawa, from 1937 to 1984. Editor (1964-72) and chair of the Committee for the revision of The Book...
OWENS, Carol. b. El Reno, Oklahoma, 30 October 1931. She was educated at San Jose State College in California. Her husband Jimmy* (they married in 1954) was a jazz band arranger who directed music in several churches in southern California. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement' (see Christian popular music, USA*), the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
SHARP, Cecil James. b. Denmark Hill, London, 22 November 1859; d. London, 23 June 1924. He was educated at Uppingham School and at Clare College, Cambridge, which he entered initially to study mathematics. After ten years in Australia pursuing mostly non-musical employment, he returned to London in 1892 determined to become a professional musician, finding work as a teacher, conductor, and administrator (including the post of principal of the Hampstead Conservatory). In 1899, he observed his...
CONVERSE, Charles Crozat. b. Warren, Massachusetts, 7 October 1832; d. Highwood, New Jersey, 18 October 1918. He was educated at Elmira Free Academy, Chemung County, New York State, and showed early promise as a musician. He played the organ at the Broadway Tabernacle Church, and taught languages and music, earning enough to enable him to study music in Leipzig, Germany, from 1855 onwards. There he met Lizst and Spohr before returning to the USA to study law. He graduated from Albany Law...
COLLIGNON, Charles. b. London, 30 January 1725; d. Cambridge, 1 October 1785. He was the son of a minister of the Dutch Church in Austin Friars, London, who died when Charles was still young. He was educated at school at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and Trinity College, Cambridge (MB 1748, MD 1754). He practised as a physician in Cambridge, with a particular interest in anatomy and pathology, publishing Compendium anatomico-medicum (1756) and Tyrocinium anatomicum (1763). He taught anatomy in the...
LLOYD, Charles Harford. b.Thornbury, Gloucestershire, 16 October 1849; d. Eton, 16 October 1919. He was educated at the local grammar school, and at Rossall School, Lancashire. He showed early promise as a musician, and was playing the organ in a local church at the age of ten. He studied at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford (BA 1872), during which time he became friendly with C.H.H. Parry* and John Stainer*, and founded the Oxford Musical Club (Dibble, 1992, p. 50). He became a...
GABRIEL, Charles Hutchinson. b. Wilton, Iowa, 18 August 1856; d. Hollywood, California, 14 September 1932. Following in his father's footsteps, Charles Gabriel became a singing school teacher at the age of 16, and after 1887 served as music director in the Grace Methodist Church in San Francisco. He settled in Chicago, the center for evangelical and revivalist publishing, in 1892, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing, composing, editing, and publishing. A list of his works includes...
LOCKHART, Charles. b. London (?), ca. 1738; d. Lambeth, London, 9 February 1815. Little is known of Lockhart's early life, and his place of birth is unknown, though it may have been London, where he lived for most of his life. He was a blind organist, who held several appointments in London, some of them simultaneously. The longest-held was at St Katherine Cree, Leadenhall Street, where he was organist from 1766 until his death. He was also organist of St Mary's Parish Church, Lambeth, from...
JONES, Charles Price Sr. b. Texas Valley, Georgia, 9 December 1865; d. Los Angeles, California, 19 January 1949. Preacher, hymnist, and denominational leader, Jones was baptized in 1884 and ordained in 1887. He became senior pastor of St Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas (1888) and graduated at Arkansas Baptist College (ca. 1893), accepting a call to Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Searcy, Arkansas, and serving as corresponding secretary of the Arkansas Colored...
WESLEY, Charles (II). b. Bristol, 11 December 1757; d. London, 23 May 1834. He was the son of Charles Wesley*, and older brother of Samuel Wesley (III)*. He was a child prodigy, admired by many of the foremost musicians in London, such as Samuel Arnold*, and advised and taught by many of them. His playing was much admired by King George III, and as a young man he played frequently at Court, being named 'Royal organist' to George III and to the Prince Regent after 1810. However, he was...
BARNARD, Charlotte Alington (née Pye). b. Louth, Lincolnshire, 23 December 1830; d. Dover, Kent, 30 January 1869. She was the daughter of Henry Alington Pye, a local solicitor and speculator who became Warden of Louth and County Treasurer. Charlotte's mother, Charlotte Yerburgh, died in 1848. As a child she had ambitions to write poetry, and by 1847, aged 16, she was well enough known and admired (and the daughter of a local dignitary), to be chosen to lay the foundation stone of Louth railway...
LANGDON, Chauncy (or Chauncey). b. Farmington, Connecticut, 8 November 1763; d. Castleton, Vermont, 23 July 1830. Although his first name is spelled Chauncy in a few early publications and on his tombstone, and also in WorldCat Identities and Library of Congress Authorities, it appears that the spelling Chauncey is far more common.
Although Langdon is known primarily as a United States Representative from Vermont, he is also credited with the compiling of Beauties of Psalmody, Containing...
URHAN (Auerhahn), Chrétien. b. Montjoie, near Aix-la Chapelle (now Aachen, Germany), 16 February 1790; d. Belleville, Paris, 2 November 1845. He came from a musical family, and was taught by his father: he became an accomplished violin, viola, and piano player. In 1805 the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, ordered him to Paris, where he became a specialist in the violon-alto, a violin with a C string added. Berlioz requested him for the viola solo in the first performance of Harold...
BOWATER, Christopher Alan (Chris). b. 1947. Bowater is a British songwriter and pastor. Between 1978 and 2006 he had published some 51 songs through Sovereign Lifestyle Music, Kingsway and Thankyou Music. Many of these have featured in various editions of series such as Mission Praise* and Songs of Fellowship*, as well as in denominational hymnals. Among his most popular and enduring songs are 'Faithful God' (1985) and 'Jesus shall take the highest honour' (1998). He has also published new...
TOMLIN, Christopher (Chris). b. Grand Saline, Texas, 4 May 1972. Tomlin is a performer, worship leader and songwriter, well-known in the USA for his association with the Passion Conferences, and internationally for his contributions to contemporary Christian music. He was educated at Tyler Junior College, Texas, and Texas A&M University. He is a multiple-award winner in the Gospel Music Association's Dove Awards. He has released ten albums, and has collaborated frequently with other...
GREGOR, Christian. b. Dirsdorf, Silesia, 1 January 1723; d. Berthelsdorf, Herrnhut, 6 November 1801. Born the son of a humble peasant farmer, he associated with the Brethren at Herrnhut from 1742, serving as organist. In 1748 he moved to Herrnhaag as director of music, and in 1749 to Zeist, returning to Herrnhut in 1753. From 1764 he was a member of the directing board of the Unitas Fratrum and was given the task of editing a hymnal which would collect and preserve what was valuable of the vast...
LATROBE, Christian Ignatius. b. Fulneck, near Leeds, 12 Feb 1758; d. Fairfield, near Manchester, 6 May 1836. Christian was the son of Benjamin Latrobe, one of the leaders of the Moravian Church in England. He was educated at the Moravian Church's schools in Niesky and Barby, Germany (1771-84), where he studied theology and also taught for five years. He was ordained a minister in the Moravian Church and became secretary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, the missionary branch...
WILLCOCK, Christopher John. b. Sydney, 8 February 1947. He attended De La Salle College, Armidale (1960-63), then studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, becoming an Associate in Music in theory and piano. At the University of Sydney he completed a BMus with honours in composition (1974), and took a BD at the Melbourne College of Divinity, followed by a Master's degree in Sacramental Theology at the Catholic Institute, Paris (1982). He then completed doctoral studies in liturgical and...
NORTON, Christopher Garth. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 22 June 1953. Educated at Otago Boys' High School, Norton showed early promise as a musician; he began composing at the age of 14, and by the age of 16 he had had an orchestral work performed and broadcast. In 1974, already a talented pianist studying under Maurice Till, he gained a first-class degree in music from the University of Otago, and went on to teach music in a number of Wellington high schools, where he worked as a...
TYE, Christopher. b. ca.1505; d. before 15 March 1573. Tye took the BMus degree at Cambridge in 1536 and became a lay clerk at King's College, Cambridge in 1537. Later he was Magister choristarum of Ely Cathedral and was awarded a DMus degree at Cambridge in 1545. Although evidence is scant, we know that Tye was introduced to the court of Henry VIII, most likely through his friendship with Dr Richard Cox, Archdeacon of Ely, and tutor to the young Prince Edward. Tye dedicated his metrical...
WALKER, Christopher Dixon Harvey. b. London, 9 June 1947. Walker became a chorister at Bristol Cathedral and later studied composition at Bristol University and Trent Park College. On leaving university he became director of music at the (then newly opened) Roman Catholic Cathedral at Clifton in Bristol. He met members of (and subsequently joined) the St Thomas More Group* before emigrating to the USA in 1990, where he became a lecturer at Mount Saint Mary College and director of music at St...
CHRYSAPHES the Younger b. 1620/25?; d. ca. 1682?. Little is known for certain about the life of Chrysaphes the Younger, who helped Byzantine music to flourish under Ottoman rule. Born in Constantinople, he is mentioned as protopsaltes of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in April 1655 and he seems to have worked there until at least 1665: in manuscript Patriarchal Library Hierosol. 4 (dated 1655) Chrysaphes is mentioned by name and described as protopsaltes; in the manuscript Patmos 930 (dated...
CLONINGER, (Elizabeth) Claire (née de Gravelles). b. Lafayette, Louisiana, 12 August 1942; d. Fairhope, Alabama, 15 August 2019. She was the daughter of Charles de Gravelles (1913-2008), a notable oil and gas land agent and a Republican politician in a predominantly Democrat state. She was educated at Louisiana State University and the University of Southwestern Louisiana (BA 1966, MA, 1967). She married Robert ('Spike') Cloninger and held various positions as elementary school teacher,...
KIMBERLING, Clark Hershall. b. Hinsdale, Illinois, 7 November 1942. He is the oldest son of Delmer Hershall Kimberling and Jocelyn Leigh (Babel) Kimberling. A professor of mathematics at the University of Evansville, Kimberling has published several choral and instrumental compositions and hymnological articles, including many for the present work.
Beginning at the age of six, Kimberling's took piano lessons, notably from Gertrude Luther in College Station, Texas. At Stephen F. Austin High...
GOUDIMEL, Claude. b. Besançon, ca. 1520 ; d. Lyon, 28-31 August 1572. Goudimel played a leading part in the creation of the French Psalter (1539; see French Protestant psalms*) with his harmonizations of melodies created by Loys Bourgeois*, Pierre Davantès*, Guillaume Franc* and other musicians from Strasbourg such as Matthäus Greiter*. The exact year of Goudimel's birth is not known (the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary proposes 1505, certain American, English and German musicologists...
LE JEUNE, Claude (Claudin). b. Valenciennes, ca. 1530; d. Paris, 1600 (buried 26 September). Le Jeune was an outstanding protestant French composer of psalms, and the best theorician and composer of the so called 'musique mesurée à l'antique' in France. He was educated in or near his native town, belonging at that time to the Low Countries. In 1552, he first composed four chansons published in Louvain (with works by Thomas Crecquillon, Clemens non Papa and Hubert Waelrant). As a Protestant, he...
SERMISY, Claudin de. b. ca. 1490; d. Paris, 13 October 1562. Very little is known about Sermisy's youth. In 1508, as one of the lower clergy in the Sainte Chapelle du Palais (Royal Chapel, Paris), he was called 'Claudin'. By 1510, he was a singer in the Queen's private chapel, and a cleric in the Noyon diocese. Before 1515, he is mentioned as a member of the Chapelle du Roy (the King's household chapel). From 1532 to at least 1555 he was the successor of Antoine de Longueval (or Longaval) as...
GALE, Clement Rowland. b. Kew, Surrey, England, January 1860, d. New York City, 10 May 1934. Gale was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists* (1896), a member of the music faculty of General Theological Seminary in New York, and composer of several hymn tunes.
Several published accounts give Gale's date of birth as 12 March 1862, but official records show that he was born in January 1860 to William Frederick Gale (b. 1823?) and Elizabeth Gale (b. 1824?) and was baptized at St...
MAROT, Clément. b. Cahors, 1496; d. Turin/Torino, Italy, 1544. He was the son of the poet and rhetorician Jean Marot. He played a leading role in the development of French poetry and hymnology. He had possibly received a musical education, allowing him to sing and play an instrument. He was first at the service of Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, and secondly, around 1519, of Marguerite d'Alençon (1492-1549), sister of Francis I. In 1527, he was appointed as a 'valet de chambre'. In...
GIBSON, Colin Alexander. b. Dunedin, New Zealand, 26 March 1933; d. Dunedin, 10 December 2022. He was educated at Otago Boys' High School and the University of Otago (he studied English, classics and music and completed a doctorate in English literature), Christchurch Training College and the University of Canterbury. He became Donald Collie Professor of English and chairman of the Department of English at the University of Otago, where he taught for 42 years. From 1956 until his death he was...
LUNDY, Michael (monastic name: Damian) FSC. b. Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, 21 March 1944; d. Oxford, 9 December 1996. The son of a master baker, he was educated at West Vale Catholic Primary School, then at the De Salle (Christian Brothers) Grammar School, Sheffield. He joined the De Salle Religious Order in 1960, and trained at St Cassian's Juniorate, Kintbury, Berkshire; then at Inglewood Novitiate, and at various establishments in Germany and France. He then read English at Magdalene...
DANIEL BEN JUDAH. (fourteenth century). Daniel ben Judah is thought to have been a Roman dayan (or dayyan, a rabbi and judge) who composed the Yigdal, a metrical paraphrase of the thirteen articles of Jewish faith drawn up by Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1130-1205). The Yigdal is known to Christians through a further paraphrase by Thomas Olivers*, with its first phrase 'The God of Abraham praise'*, often sung to LEONI.
Little is known about Daniel ben Judah. Indeed, it appears that only...
READ, Daniel. b. Attleboro, Massachusetts, 16 November 1757; d. New Haven, Connecticut, 4 December 1836. Daniel Read spent his early years working on the family farm. He had only a few months of formal education in common school. His musical training came in singing schools (class lessons in musical rudiments and choral singing) and it is likely that one of his teachers was William Billings*. After service in the Massachusetts militia during the Revolutionary War, Read settled in New Haven,...
SCHUTTE, Daniel L. b. Neenah, Wisconsin, 28 December 1947. Schutte was educated at St Louis University, St Louis, Missouri (BS, 1972). After three years teaching Oglala Sioux high school students at Red Cloud Indian School at Pine Ridge, South Dakota (1973-76), he went to the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California (1976-80, MDiv 1980) to complete his formal theological training in preparation for priestly ordination. He also holds an MTh degree from the Graduate Theological Union,...
VETTER, Daniel. b. Breslau, date unknown, mid-17th century; d. ca 1730. He was organist of St Nicholas' Church, Leipzig, and published Musicalische Kirch- und Haus Ergötzlichkeit (Part 1, 1709, Part 2, 1713). In this book he is thought to be the composer of four tunes, although he claimed one only. In Part 2 is the tune known in British books as DAS WALT' GOTT VATER, because it was set a hymn beginning 'Das walt' Gott Vater und Gott Sohn'. It has been pressed into service in different ways: it...
ZSCHECH, Darlene Joyce. b. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 8 September 1965. She was given an early training in music and dance as a child at Brisbane. By the age of ten she was performing on and hosting segments of a children's weekly television programme, and went on to record commercials for a number of international companies and form backing choirs for touring singers. During her teenage years she led various gospel bands in Brisbane, then with her husband Mark joined a youth band which...
CHERWIEN, David Mark. b. West Union, Iowa, 1 July 1957. Cherwien, organist, conductor and composer, studied at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, (BM 1979) and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (MM 1995, DMA 2001). Additional studies in conducting, composition and organ were taken at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule, Spandau, Germany. He has held positions as organist at the American Church (LCA) in Berlin; director of music at the First Lutheran Church of Richmond Beach (ELCA) Shoreline,...
DARGIE, David. b. 29 July 1938. David Dargie is one of South Africa's leading ethnomusicologists. He studied with Andrew Tracey at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa (on Andrew Tracey, see African hymnody*). Dargie is also a foremost encourager of compositions by Africans for the church. Of Scottish descent, Dargie is a third-generation South African raised in the coastal town of East London. Following seminary training in Pretoria and his ordination in 1964, he served in New...
EICHER, David Eugene. b. Harrisonburg, Virginia; 11 June 1954. An organist, church musician, music educator, denominational administrator, and hymnal editor, David Eicher's ecclesial roots were in the Church of the Brethren. He was born to the Rev. William C. Eicher (1923–2008) and Elsie Williard Eicher (1927–2011), the second of two children. His father served churches in Southern Virginia until he was called to Springfield, Ohio when Eicher entered the tenth grade.
Showing a great interest...
EVANS, David Emlyn. b. Pen'ralltwen, Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthen, 21 September 1843; d. Cemmaes, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, 19 April 1913. He began life as a draper's assistant, but became a distinguished Welsh musician, much in demand as an Eisteddfod adjudicator. With David Jenkins* he edited Y Cerddor ('The Musician') from 1889 to 1913. He was the music editor of several Welsh hymnbooks, including the Congregationalist Y Caniedydd Cynulleidfaol (1895) and the Wesleyan Methodist Llyfr...
JONES, David Hugh. b. Jackson, Ohio. 25 February 1900; d. North Conway, New Hampshire, 1983. Jones was an organist, composer, and hymnal editor. He studied at Guilmant Organ School (New York City) and the Conservatory at Fontainebleau (France), achieving the recognition as Fellow of the American Guild of Organists* (1924). He received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from two Pennsylvania institutions, Washington and Jefferson College and Beaver College (now Arcadia University).
Jones was a...
David J. Evans ('Dave'), b. Dartford, Kent, 1957. As a child he lived in Winchester; he was educated at the University of Southampton (BSc). He is a music teacher who has been involved in leading contemporary worship in a number of 'new' churches. He has written many worship songs; by far the best known is 'Be still, for the Presence of the Lord'*.
JRW
Further Reading
Christopher Idle, Exploring Praise! Volume 2: the authors and composers (Darlington: Praise Trust, 2007).
JENKINS, David. b. Trecastle, Breconshire, 30 December 1848; d. Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, 10 December 1915. He began life as an apprentice to a tailor. His talent for music enabled him to study under Joseph Parry* at Aberystwyth, 1874-78, and he became (from 1882) successively instructor, lecturer, and finally Professor of Music at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He was precentor of the English Presbyterian Church in Aberystwyth, and noted as a choral conductor. With David Emlyn...
KAI, David. b. Toronto, Ontario, 14 May 1955. David Kai is a composer, songwriter, and arranger whose extensive body of work reflects his own background as a Sansei (a third generation Canadian of Japanese descent), and his eclectic musical training and experience. Kai grew up in Toronto, highly involved in the music ministry of Centennial-Japanese United Church, where he began playing piano for Sunday school by about age 10. By the age of 13 he was playing for services.
Influences upon him...
McCORMICK, David Wilfred. b. Lehighton, Pennsylvania, 6 May 1928; d. Richmond, Virginia, 21 September 2019. The son of a printer and volunteer church organist, he received his bachelor's degree (1949) and his master's degree (1950) from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey. He began his church ministry at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas where he established a life-long friendship with composer Jane Manton Marshall*. His service at Highland Park was...
WILLIAMS, David McKinley. b. Caernarvonshire, Wales, 20 February 1887; d. Oakland, California, 13 March 1978. One of the most dynamic 20th-century leaders of American church music, he is often identified with the music of St Bartholomew's Church in New York City, where he was organist and choirmaster from 1920 to 1947. Williams served on the Joint Commission on Church Music of the Episcopal Church and the Joint Commission on Revision of the Hymnal (H40). He composed hymn tunes and descants,...
HAAS, David Robert. b. Saginaw, Michigan, 4 May 1957. Haas studied at Central Michigan University and achieved proficiency in voice, keyboard, guitar and trumpet. His studies at the (College) University of St. Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota centered on theology and liturgical music. He was later appointed composer in residence at the university's St Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He also served as composer in residence at Benilde-St Margaret High School in St Louis Park, Minnesota, and he is...
STEEL, David Warren. b. Evanston, Illinois, 20 September 1947. Distinguished scholar of USA folk hymnody, Steel was raised in Scotia, New York, attended Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, (AB, 1968) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, (AM, 1976, PhD, 1982). While a special student at Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, he worked on English adaptations of chant. His neo-Mozarabic 'Missa Toletana' was published in Congregational Music for Eucharist...
PHOTEINOS (MORAITĒS), Dionysios. b. Achaias, Palaias Patras, Peloponnesios, Greece, 1777; d. Wallachia, 10 October 1821. He studied Byzantine music with his father Athanasios (personal physician of the sultan Abdul Hamit and Domestikos of the Great Church of Constantinople), and then at the Patriarchal School in Constantinople as apprentice of Iakobos Peloponnesios* (Protopsaltes) and Petros Byzantios Fygas (d. 1808). In 1797 he attended the Imperial Academy in Bucharest. He was a tambour,...
SALIERS, Don E. b. Fostoria, Ohio, 11 August, 1937. Don Saliers is an eminent ecumenical liturgical scholar, author, teacher, composer and keyboardist, and ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. He grew up in Ohio where he began the study of piano at age eight, played clarinet and violin, and sang in many high school ensembles. His father, Harold A. ('Red') Saliers, (1898 – 1981), was a classical violinist who also played jazz in New York and later formed a dance band in Ohio. Other...
HUSTAD, Donald Paul. b. Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, USA, 2 Oct 1918; d. La Grange, Illinois, 22 June 2013. He was the elder of two sons born to Clara and Peter Hustad. Peter was killed in a hunting accident just after Don's first birthday and before the birth of Don's brother, Wesley. Following this tragedy, the family resided at Boone Biblical College and Associated Institutions in Iowa. On 28 Nov 1942, he married Ruth Lorraine McKeag (1920-2013). They were parents of three daughters,...
POTTER, Ethel Olive Doreen (née Cousins). b. Panama, 1925; d. Geneva, 24 June 1980. She was a Jamaican citizen, born in Panama, but growing up in Jamaica, where she studied piano and violin at school. She moved to England and trained as a teacher of music at St Katherine's College, Liverpool. In 1957, she gained her Licentiate of Music degree at Trinity College, London, and was violinist for a number of orchestras.
She married Philip Potter, the General Secretary of the World Council of...
AKERS, Doris Mae. b. Brookfield, Missouri, 21 May 1922; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 26 July 1995. Doris Akers had an active career as singer, choir director, songwriter, and recording artist, though she had no formal training in music. She wrote her first song at age ten, and afterwards composed hundreds of gospel songs and hymns (some sources indicate 500[1]) including 'Lead me, guide me'* and 'There's a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place'* which have influenced developments in Black Urban...
RAMBO, Dottie (Luttrell, Joyce Reba). b. Madisonville, Kentucky, 2 March 1934; d. Mount Vernon, Missouri, 11 May 2008. Raised during the Great Depression in the poverty-stricken coalfields of western Kentucky, Dottie expressed an early affinity for country music, taught herself to play guitar by listening to country music radio performances broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry, and began writing songs at the age of eight. Four years later she had a born-again Christian experience and made a...
HARPER, Earl Enyeart. b. Coffey, Missouri, 28 March 1895; d. St Petersburg, Florida, 1 March 1967. Pastor, hymnist, educator, author, director of hymn festivals, arts curator, Harper attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, Nebraska (BA, 1918) and Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts (STB, 1921), with additional study at Harvard and the University of Chicago. Harper began his professional career as the pastor of Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, Auburndale,...
TOURJÉE, Eben. b. Warwick, Rhode Island, 1 June 1834; d. Boston, Massachusetts, 12 April 1891. Tourjée was an influential music educator, teacher, organist, hymnal editor, and entrepreneur. He worked in cotton mills while attending school at the East Greenwich Seminary, Providence, Rhode Island. He trained as an organist and taught music in public schools. By the age of 20 Tourjée had opened a music school based on the European conservatory model of the conservatory in Fall River,...
ESPINOSA, Eddie. b. Los Angeles, California, 10 September 1953.
Eddie Espinosa is an educator, counselor, administrator, worship leader, composer, and producer. His family moved to Phoenix when he was in first grade. Though raised a Catholic and served as an altar boy, he made a profession of faith on August 24, 1969. Soon afterward, he attended a Dave Wilkerson Youth Rally and experienced Andraé Crouch* 'taking people into the presence of God'. At that point, he understood his calling...
THOMAS, Edith Lovell. b. Eastford, Connecticut, 11 September 1878; d. Claremont, California, 17 March 1970. Distinguished editor of age-level hymnody and hymnals, teacher, and pioneer of church music education, Thomas introduced a generation of musicians and teachers, including this present writer, to the vast potential of music and the other arts in children's Christian education and worship.
Thomas was one of seven surviving children born of the marriage of James Sewall Thomas (1831-1917),...
KREMSER, Eduard. b. Vienna, Austria 10 April 1838; d. Vienna 26 November 1914. A distinguished conductor, arranger, editor/compiler of folk and popular music and music critic, Kremser attended business school, studied piano and music theory, and sang in amateur choral societies in Vienna. In 1861 he joined the famed Männergesangverein as rehearsal accompanist and member of the solo quartet. In 1869 he was appointed one of several co-directors: for example, Rudolph Weinwurm (1835-1911)], was...
HONTIVEROS, Eduardo. b. Molo, Iloilo City, 20 December 1923; d. 15 January 2008. This Filipino Jesuit musician was educated at Manila High School and the San Jose Seminary (1939-45). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1945, took novice's vows in 1947, studied theology in the USA, and was ordained in 1954. He is known as 'the father of Filipino liturgical music'. In October 2000, Pope John Paul II conferred on him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice bestowed on clergy and laypersons who have served...
ELGAR, (Sir) Edward William. b. Broadheath, Worcestershire, 2 June 1857; d. Worcester, 23 February 1934. At Broadheath his father, William Henry Elgar, ran a music retailing business and was organist of St George's Roman Catholic Church. Educated at Littleton House School and self-taught as a composer, Elgar was later to receive honorary degrees from several major universities. He was knighted in 1904, received the O.M. in 1911, and was appointed Master of the King's Music in 1924.
Elgar was...
BOATNER, Edward Hammond. b. New Orleans, Louisiana, 13 November 1898; d. New York City, 16 June 1981. Edward Boatner was a multi-talented musician recognized as a composer, choral conductor, and singer as well as author of plays, stories, and music education materials. He was especially noted for essays in African American history and his concertized arrangements of African American spirituals*.
He was the son of an itinerant Methodist minister Dr. Daniel Webster Boatner (?1854— ). His surname...
HODGES, Edward. b. Bristol, England, 20 July 1796; d. Clifton, Bristol, 1 September 1867. Hodges was an organist, composer, and father of Faustina H. Hodges* and John Sebastian Bach Hodges*. Many hymnals include Edward Hodges's tune HYMN TO JOY, arranged from a melody in the finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony [Opus 125, 1824] as the setting for Henry van Dyke*'s 'Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee'*.
Edward's father, Archelaus Hodges (1767-1811), and mother, Elizabeth (Stephens) Hodges...
MILLER, Edward. b. Norwich, 30 October 1735; d. Doncaster, 12 September 1807. He was apprenticed to his father's trade as a paviour, but left to study music under Charles Burney. By self-education he became a man of considerable learning. He was made organist of Doncaster parish church in 1756 and held the post until his death. He took much interest in local affairs, publishing a history of Doncaster in 1804, but also built up a national network of patronage which enabled him to gather an...
STEPHEN (Jones), Edward ('Tanymarian'). b. Maentwrog, Merioneth, 15 December 1822; d. 10 May 1885. Edward Jones took the name of Edward Stephen when a student. His father played the harp and his mother sang, and he himself studied music assiduously while working in the clothing trade, and then as a student of theology at the Congregational College, Bala. From 1847 he was minister of Horeb, Dwygyfylchi, near Conway, North Wales. He became known throughout Wales as a preacher, poet, lecturer,...
See 'Edward Stephen (Jones)'*
EXCELL, Edwin Othello. b. Uniontown, Stark County, Ohio, 13 December 1851; d. Chicago, Illinois, 10 June 1921. Publisher, singer, and gospel song composer best known for his Sunday-school songs, including the standard arrangement of the shape-note melody, AMAZING GRACE, and his tune, BLESSINGS (see following), Excell was born to Rev. Joshua James Excell (1825-1911), a singer and minister in the German Reformed Church, and Emily (née Hess, d. 1888). Before his musical career became successful,...
HOVLAND, Egil. b. Råde, Norway, 18 October 1924; d. Fredrikstad, Norway, 5 February 2013. Hovland was one of the most prolific and multifaceted church music and mainstream composers of his generation. One of two sons of a butcher and sausage-maker (a profession intended for both sons), Hovland's family relocated to Fredrikstad in 1928. Here, his father was active as choir leader for a revivalist congregation. It was in this context that Hovland was introduced to church music. Hovland studied...
MANN, Elias. b. Stoughton, Massachusetts, 8 May 1750; d. Northampton, Massachusetts, 12 May 1825. Mann was a carpenter, musician, singing teacher, and tunebook compiler, born in the northwest part of Stoughton, in a section of the city now called Canton. He was the seventh of twelve children born to Theodore Mann (nda) and Abigail Day Mann (nda). Although little is known about his childhood and musical training, it is speculated that he grew up in Dedham and Walpole, southwest of nearby...
ESLINGER, Elise Shoemaker (née Matheny). b. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 2 December 1942. Elise Matheny's musical education began in early childhood with her aunt and continued with piano lessons at age 5 and organ lessons at age 14. Following graduation from high school in Meridian, Mississippi (1960), she pursued her undergraduate education at Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi (BA in Organ, Minor in English, Magna cum laude, 1963). She continued graduate studies in music literature at the...
DARE, Elkanah Kelsay. b. Salem, Salem County, New Jersey, 15 January 1782; d. Colerain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 26 August 1826. Dare is best known for his contributions to John Wyeth*'s shape-note Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music*, Part Second. Dare married Mary Shallcross Phillips (1785-1841) in 1804. A list of their ten children with dates and places of birth, along with other records, indicates that Dare had moved to Wilmington, Delaware before the end of 1809, and to...
ROUTLEY, Erik Reginald. b. Brighton, Sussex, 31 October 1917; d. Nashville, Tennessee, USA, 8 October 1982. He was the only child of John, a businessman and town councillor who was Mayor of Brighton in 1936-37, and Eleanor, a homemaker and musician. He attended Fonthill Preparatory School, 1925-31 and Lancing College, 1931-36. He read Literae Humaniores (nicknamed 'Mods' and 'Greats': classics/ ancient history and philosophy) at Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1940, MA 1943). He became an...
SANDS, Ernest. b. 1949; d. Oswestry, 11 April 2016. A bucolic, witty and charismatic priest and composer, 'Ernie' Sands sprang to fame and ultimately (in the USA) notoriety as the composer of 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* described by one critic as 'a rip-off from Dave Brubeck's “Take Five”'. A founder member of the St Thomas More Group*, Sands had a number of pieces published in the UK and USA in group song collections. 'Sing of the Lord's goodness'* was chosen for the enthronement in 1991 of...
BARTLETT, Eugene Monroe Sr. b. Waynesville, Missouri, 24 December 1885; d. Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 25 January 1941. Bartlett received his education at the Hall-Moody Institute in Martin, Tennessee, and at the William Jewell Academy, Independence, Missouri (1913-14). He served as president of the Hartford Music Company, in Hartford, Arkansas (1918-35), publishing songbooks and editing the company's music magazine, Herald of Song. He was associated later with the Stamps-Baxter Publications* in...
HAMILTON, Fayette Montgomery ('F.M.'). b. Washington, Arkansas, 3 September 1858; d. Sparta, Georgia, 10 November 1912. The life of this hymnodist, composer, arranger, and editor is most accurately told within the context of the early history of the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church (in 1954 the name was changed to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church). It was first organized on 16 December 1870 as The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, an ecclesial body of mostly African...
HODGES, Faustina Hasse. b. Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, 7 August 1823; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 February 1895. Daughter of Edward Hodges* and sister of John Sebastian Bach Hodges*, Faustina Hodges was a composer of church music, including hymn tunes, as well as secular songs.
Named after opera singer Faustina Bordoni (1697-1781) and her husband, the composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783), Faustina Hodges was baptized 5 September 1823 in the Moravian Church, East Tytherton, about...
GIARDINI, Felice. b. Turin, Italy, 12 April 1716; d. Moscow, 8 June 1796. He was a chorister in Milan Cathedral and was a pupil of Paldini before studying the violin under G. B. Somis. It was as a violinist that he became well known, both as an orchestral player and a soloist, particularly for his prowess as an embellisher of melody. After a period at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, he travelled throughout Germany and France before arriving in London where, according to Charles Burney, he made...
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, (Jacob Ludwig) Felix. b. Hamburg, 3 February 1809; d. Leipzig, 4 November 1847. Grandson of the Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), Felix Mendelssohn was baptized in Berlin as a Protestant in 1816, around which time the family added the second surname Bartholdy. An extraordinarily versatile child prodigy likened by Goethe and Heinrich Heine to a second Mozart, Mendelssohn established his credentials through a precocious series of romantic...
FILOTHEI the Hieromonk. b. Wallachia, ca. 1640; d. ca. 1720. A Romanian interpreter, translator and author of Byzantine hymns and liturgical texts, Filothei studied Byzantine music with priest Teodosie from the Metropolitan Church of Wallachia. He spent a few years in the monasteries on Mount Athos, improving his knowledge of Byzantine music and the Greek and Medieval Slavonic languages. He returned to Wallachia before 1700 and is known as a hieromonk (a monk who has also been ordained as a...
CLARK, Francis Albert. b. Brooklyn, New York, 1867; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 27 February 1948. Widely known as 'Professor Clark', he was a celebrated Philadelphia organist, pianist, choir director and arranger, and director of music in a number of leading churches, including, the Wesley African American Episcopal Zion Church (ca. 1919) and the Wesley Methodist Church on 15th and Lombard Streets. Clark was the Celebration Chorus musical director for the controversial, but successful,...
WESTBROOK, Francis Brotherton. b. Thornton Heath, Norbury, Surrey, 16 June 1903; d. Harpenden, Hertfordshire, 19 September 1975. He was educated at Whitgift Middle School, Croydon, and Didsbury (Wesleyan) Theological College, Manchester. He was ordained at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, 1930, and served as a Methodist minister, before 1932 as a Wesleyan. His first church was at Tipton, near Birmingham, and he took the opportunity ot study with Granville Bantock, Professor of Music at the...
GUERRERO, Francisco. b. Seville, 1527 or 1528; d. Seville, 8 November 1599. Guerrero was engaged as a singer in the cathedral of his native Seville in 1542. He was taught music by his brother Pedro, and subsequently by Cristóbal de Morales in Toledo in 1545–1546. In the latter year, and with Morales's support, Guerrero secured the post of maestro de capilla at Jaén Cathedral. He was again in the service of Seville Cathedral from 1549, remaining there until his death. Placed in charge of the...
LA FEILLÉE, François de. b. and d. France, 18th century, dates unknown. La Feillée is thought to have been a priest attached to the cathedral at Chartres, but nothing definite is known about his life. He published Méthode pour apprendre les Règles du Plain-chant et de la Psalmodie (1745), which was influential in the movement in France to provide music that was independent of Rome (see Neo-Gallican chant*). His work was later revised by F.D. Aynès, in 1808 (the 1823 'Nouvelle Édition...
GRUBER, Franz Xaver. b. Unterweizburg, near Hochburg, 25 November 1787; d. Hallein, 7 June 1863. The son of a weaver, Gruber became a typical Austrian cantor/schoolmaster, holding teaching and church positions in villages near Salzburg, including Arnsdorf from 1807, Oberndorf from 1816 and Hallein from 1835, where he remained until his death. His extensive output (church music and some recreational secular music, some now lost) has mostly remained unpublished and almost entirely unknown, with...
GRAHAM, Fred Kimball. b. Oshawa, Ontario, 8 April 1946. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT 1966) and the University of Toronto (Mus. Bac. in Education 1967), winning a graduating scholarship and a Canada Council bursary which took him to Germany for three years to study sacred music and conducting. He completed a Fellowship in the Royal College of Organists in London in 1970.
Returning to Canada as a parish musician, he taught instrumental and choral music in Ottawa, and...
WISEMAN, (Frederick) Luke. b. York, 29 January 1858; d. Wandsworth, London, 16 January 1944. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, Luke Hoult Wiseman (1822-1875, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, 1872), he trained for the ministry at Didsbury College, Manchester, after working in a bank. He was tutor in Hebrew at Didsbury College (1881-87), Superintendent Minister of the Birmingham Mission (1887-1913), and President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference, 1912-13. He became...
CLARKE, Frederick Robert Charles. b. Vancouver, Canada, 7 August 1931; d. Kingston, Ontario, 18 November 2009. He was educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied organ with Eric Rollinson, and at the University of Toronto, where his principal composition teacher was Healey Willan*. He completed the BMus. degree at Toronto in 1951 and the DMus. degree in 1954; his doctoral thesis was the oratorio Bel and the Dragon, set to a text from the Apocrypha. In 1952 he became...
FILITZ, Friedrich. b. Arnstadt, Thuringia, 16 March 1804; d. Bonn, 8 December 1876. Filitz graduated in philosophy and worked as a music critic and historian in Berlin (1843-47) before moving to Munich where he wrote Über einige Interessen der älteren Kirchenmusik (1853).
The hymn tunes associated with Filitz were originally published in two books. Together with Ludwig Erk, he published Vierstimmige Choralsätze der vornehmsten Meister des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Essen, 1845). He also compiled...
SILCHER, (Philipp) Friedrich. b. Schnait, near Stuttgart, 27 June 1789; d. Tübingen, 26 August 1860. Silcher studied music under his father, and later under N.F. Auberlen at Fellbach. He became a private tutor at Schondorf (1806-09), and then taught at a girls' school at Ludwigsburg (1809-15). He then became a private music teacher again at Stuttgart before being appointed director of music at the University of Tübingen in 1817. There he founded a male voice choir, the Akademische Liedertafel,...
MEHRTENS, Frits (Frederik August). b. 1922; d. 1975. Mehrtens was a Dutch protestant church musician of great influence. Initially he studied medicine, but this was interrupted by the Second World War. He switched to music and studied organ with Jacob Bijster en Anthon van der Horst at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Nevertheless his medical knowledge played an important role in his work as a choir director and leader of congregational singing. He was fascinated by the physical aspect of singing...
AINGER, Geoffrey Jackson. b. Mistley, near Manningtree, Essex, 28 October 1925; d. 25 January 2013. He was educated at Bracondale School, Norwich (1935-42). After service with the Church Army in East Anglia and north-west Europe, he trained for the Methodist ministry at Richmond College, London (1946-52). He served in the Southampton circuit (1952-56), and was ordained in 1953. In 1956 he went to New York, where he worked with an ecumenical Team Ministry at East Harlem, and gained a Master's...
NEUMARK, Georg. b. Langensalza,Thuringia,16 Mar 1621; d. Weimar, 8 July 1681. His father Michael worked as a clothmaker. His mother Martha was a daughter of the well-known princely official Salomon Plathner. In 1624 the family moved to the free imperial city of Mühlhausen (Thuringia), where Neumark received his early education. From 1632 to 1636 he attended the Hennebergisches Gymnasium in Schleusingen, presumably followed by the Latin School in Osterode (Harz) from 1636 to 1640. In 1641 he...
RHAU (RHAW), Georg. b. Franconia, 1488, d. 1548. He was born in Franconia in the town of Eisfeld on the Werra River. He attended the University of Erfurt for a brief time, and the University at Wittenberg (BA, 1514). For four years he was employed in the Wittenberg printing establishment of Rhau-Grunenberg, presumably owned by his uncle. From 1518 to 1520 Rhau was cantor at the Thomasschule and Thomaskirche in Leipzig. He was also associated with the University at Leipzig where he lectured on...
BLACK, George Alexander. b. Toronto, 8 May 1931; d. Paris, France, 1 July 2003. He was professor of French Language and Literature, Latin, Liturgy and Church Music at Huron College, University of Western Ontario at London, Ontario; and a Canadian liturgist, hymnist, organist and choral director. George Black served as organist and choir director at several Toronto churches before he moved to London, ON, where he continued leading congregational music while teaching at Huron College. As Director...
SHEA, George Beverly. b. Winchester, Ontario, 1 February 1909; d. Montreat, North Carolina, 16 April 2013. Shea was a celebrated vocalist, hymn writer, and composer. His long tenure with the Billy Graham Crusades, five decades of concerts, appearances on radio and television, and 70 recordings, brought him many accolades, including 'America's beloved gospel singer', and 'the first international singing star of the gospel world'. Shea was the fourth of eight children born of the union of Adam...
STEBBINS, George Coles. b. East Carlton, New York, 26 February 1846; d. Catskill, New York, 6 October 1945. Stebbins was a prominent and abiding northern Baptist composer, compiler, soloist, and song leader of 19th- and early 20th-century urban revivals in the UK and the USA. Following his education in an academy in Albany, and early experiences in singing schools (see USA hymnody, music*), he studied music in Buffalo, New York City, and Rochester, where he sang tenor in a church solo quartet....
HANDEL, George Frideric. b. Halle-an-der-Saale, Saxony, 23 February 1685; d. London, 14 April 1759. Handel received his early musical training under Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, the organist of the Marktkirche in Halle, and since many of Zachow's surviving keyboard compositions are based on German chorale melodies we can assume that this area of hymnody was a fundamental part of Handel's early musical experience. The services at the Marktkirche no doubt involved congregational chorales as well as...
SMART, (Sir) George Thomas. b. London, 10 May 1776; d. London, 23 February 1867. He received his early musical education as a Child (chorister) of the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, and began his career as organist of St James' Chapel, Hampstead Road (1791). A few years later he added a similar post at Brunswick Chapel and in 1822 he was appointed one of the two joint organists of the Chapel Royal. By the end of his career his inability to play the pedals was out-dated: when invited to try a...
WARREN George William. b. Albany, New York State, 17 August 1828; d. New York City, 17 March 1902. Warren was educated at Racine College, Wisconsin, and was primarily self-taught as a musician. He served Episcopal parishes in Albany, New York (1846-1860), Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, New York (1860-1870), and St Thomas Church, New York City (1870-1900). Warren composed service music, anthems, and hymns. His sacred music was published by William A. Pond, Union Square, New York, and by 1888...
GEORGIOS of Crete. d. ca. 1815. Unlike many post-Byzantine composers, Georgios of Crete did not work as lampadarios or protopsaltes at the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople. Instead, he worked exclusively as a musician and composer. He studied music with Meletios Sinaïtes, Petros Peloponnesios*, Petros Byzantios* and Iakobos Peloponnesios*. Later, he worked as a teacher in Constantinople, on the island of Chios, and in Chania on Crete (where he is buried). His many pupils...
LATTY, Geraldine. b. 1963. Latty is a British songwriter and performer of West Indian descent. Her diverse religious background includes time spent in Pentecostal, Methodist and Baptist churches. A music graduate of Bath University, she taught music in a Catholic school in Bristol for twelve years. She has also taught a range of music courses at the London School of Theology and Dordt University, Iowa. She has released six solo albums of her own music and has also featured prominently in...
CARTFORD, Gerhard M. b. Madagascar, 21 March, 1923; d. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 8 February 2016. He was the son of missionary parents. He studied at St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota (BM, 1948), The School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York (MSM, 1950), Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary*) St Paul, Minnesota (1954-1955), St John's University, St Cloud, Minnesota (1955), and the University of Minnesota (PhD in musicology, 1961). As a Fulbright scholar, he...
GERMANOS of Constantinople (the Confessor), St (or Germanus). b. Constantinople, ca. 655; d. Platonium, before 754. He was the son of a patrikios. In 669, after his father's execution by the Byzantine emperor, Germanos was made a eunuch and enrolled in the clergy of Hagia Sophia. He quickly established a reputation as an expert in theology. He became bishop of Cyzicus (ca. 706) and patriarch of Constantinople in 715.
Germanos opposed various heresies; in 730, under pressure from Emperor Leo...
GERMANOS of Neai Patrai. b. Tyrnavo/Thessalia, ca.1625; d. ca. 1685. Germanos was born in and studied Byzantine music in Constantinople with Georgios Rhaidestinos and Chrysaphes the Younger*, although in many sources he is mentioned as a contemporary of the latter. In ca. 1665 he was appointed metropolitan of Neai Patrai (today Ypati in the district of Phthiotida) by patriarch Dionysios III. In 1683 he seems to have resigned from this post and gone to live in Wallachia.
There are five known...
HANCOCK, Gerre. b. Lubbock, Texas, 21 February 1934; d. Austin, Texas, 21 January 2012. He was an organist, professor, choir trainer, and composer, known especially for his book Improvising: How to Master the Art, which is largely based on hymn tunes.
His father, Edward Ervin Hancock (1902-1965) was Lubbock County Superintendent of Schools, and his mother, Flake (née Steger) Hancock, was a pianist for several churches. Gerre began playing the piano at age four and took lessons from his mother....
PALESTRINA, Giovanni Pierluigi da. b. Palestrina, Italy, between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526; d. Rome, 2 February 1594. In 1544 Palestrina was appointed organist at the cathedral in the town of Palestrina (near Rome) where he served until 1551. His subsequent appointments all were in Rome. In September 1551 he was appointed to the Cappella Giulia (founded in 1513 at San Pietro by Pope Julius II), first as magister cantorum, subsequently as magister cappellae. From January until...
SADOH, Godwin. b. Lagos State, Nigeria, 28 March 1965. An Anglican organist, composer, hymn writer, church musician, and professor of music, Godwin Sadoh received certificates in piano, theory, and general musicianship from the Royal School of Music, London (1982-1986), and degrees in piano and composition from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (BA, 1988); in African ethnomusicology from University of Pittsburgh (MA, 1998), in organ performance and church music from University of...
LIGHT, Gordon Stanley. b. Claresholm, Alberta, 7 May 1944. A bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, Gordon Light was born into a military family. He has lived in Alberta and in various places in Canada. Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa) (BA, 1965), then at Trinity College (Toronto) (STB, 1969) led to ordination as deacon and priest in the Anglican Church in 1969. In 2001, he was consecrated as bishop for the Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior of British Columbia. Light worked in...
KENDRICK, Graham Andrew. b. Blisworth, Northamptonshire, 2 August 1950. He was the son of a Baptist minister; the family later moved to Essex and London. He started composing songs at 15 years of age, having taught himself to play the piano. In response to the Church's lack of connection with youth culture during the 1960s, he formed an early interest in the use of rock and folk music for outreach and evangelism.
He trained as an English/Ceramics teacher at Avery Hill College, Kent, but...
TULLAR, Grant Colfax. b. Bolton, Connecticut, 5 August 1869; d. Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 20 May 1950. He was a gospel singer, evangelist, publisher, writer of hymn texts, and composer of hymn tunes.
A few months before Tullar's birth, Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) and Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885) were inaugurated President and Vice-President of the United States. Tullar was named in their honor. His father, Austin Milleon Tullar (1830-1896) fought briefly in the Civil War, having enlisted 30...
BROWN, Grayson Warren.b. Brooklyn, New York, 21 March 1948; d. Jacksonville, Florida, 2 July 2023.
Grayson Warren Brown was a pioneer in the development of the Black gospel Mass in the late 1960s. Authentic, spirit-filled worship liturgies characterized his work in a small inner-city multicultural parish in New York. Brown's creative works mixed the genres of Black gospel music with the Western classical tradition, illustrating his sensitivity to both the Catholic tradition and the...
GREGORIOS PROTOPSALTES b. 1777/78?; d. 23 December 1821. Gregorios is said to have been born on the day of Petros Peloponnesios*'s death, and to have taught himself to sing and speak Armenian. His father sent him to the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai so as to be instructed in Greek grammar and music. Later on Gregorios was taught Byzantine music by Iakobos Peloponnesios*, Georgios of Crete* and Petros Byzantios* as well as Arabian-Persian music by the Ottoman composer Ismail Dede...
JONES, Griffith Hugh ('Gutyn Arfon'). b. Ty Du, Llanberis, Caernarfonshire, January 1849; d. Rhiwddolion, Caernarfonshire, 26 July 1919. He attended music classes held by John Roberts* ('Ieuan Gwyllt') and worked as a teacher in Dolbadarn and Aberystwyth before becoming headmaster of Rhiwddolion primary school near Betws-y-coed. He founded a number of music classes in the area and encouraged instrumental music. His fame now rests on his hymn tune LLEF (the word means 'a cry'), a solemn yet...
DU FAY, Guillaume. b. ?1397 (perhaps 5 August); d. 24 November 1474. It is not certain where du Fay was born, though he may have come from Bersele near Brussels. By 1409, however, he had become a chorister at Cambrai, the cathedral which formed the focal point for most of his career. In addition, he spent significant periods in Italy, as a member of the Papal Chapel (1428-33 and 1435-37), and at the Savoy court (1433-35, 1437-39 and 1452-58). He also had ties with the Burgundian court,...
FRANC, Guillaume. b. Rouen, ca. 1515 ; d. Lausanne, Switzerland, 1570. He worked in Geneva as singer, professor of music and cantor in the reformed Cathedral Saint-Pierre. In 1541 he became the director of 'une eschole de musique' (music school), where he was appointed professor of music and singing. When Jean Calvin* returned to Geneva, the Council introduced psalm-singing and the training of school children to sing in church. On 2 May 1542, Franc was appointed as 'maystre des escholes'....
See 'Griffith Hugh Jones'*
HASSLER, Hans (Johann) Leo. b. Nürnberg, 1564 (baptized 26 October); d. Frankfurt-am-Main, 8 June 1612. He was born into a family that was both musical (his father and two brothers were musicians) and prosperous. Like his younger contemporary Heinrich Schütz* he completed his musical education with a visit to Italy. In 1584 he went to Venice, where he came into contact with the Gabrielis, Zarlino, and Merulo. This visit was important in the development of his musical idiom, which combined...
WOOD, Harold D'Arcy. b. Nuku'alofa, Tonga, 9 December 1936. He is the son of Methodist missionary parents who for 13 years directed Tupou College, a school for boys in Tonga. His father, Alfred Harold Wood (1896-1989), played the piano, conducted choirs and published extensively on hymns. He was chairman of the Australian Hymn Book Committee from its formation in 1968 to the publication of the hymnbook in 1977.
On the family's return to Australia, D'Arcy Wood was educated at Wesley College and...
FRIEDELL, Harold William. b. Jamaica, Queens, New York, 11 May 1905; d. Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 17 February 1958. Friedell was an organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer of over 100 choral, organ and instrumental works. A 'Profile' in the Hudson Dispatch (New York), 16 September 1936, compared Friedell's anthems, in 'artistic temperament to the school of English composers who are writing a new chapter in the music on the ancient “modes” as opposed to the schools which are...
SPAETH, Harriet Reynolds Krauth (Harriet Krauth). b. Baltimore, Maryland, 21 September 1845; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1925. Spaeth was an author and translator of hymn texts and composer of hymn tunes, and a music editor. Her best known translations are 'As each happy Christmas' and verses 3 and 4 of 'Lo, how a rose e'er blooming' (see 'Es ist ein' Ros entsprungen'*). She was the daughter of Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823-1883) and Susan Reynolds Krauth (1821-1853). C. P. Krauth,...
COOPERSMITH, Harry. b. Russia, 2 December 1902; d. Santa Barbara, California, 31 December 1975. Coopersmith was a pioneer in the dissemination of Jewish music in America. The hymn tune YISRAEL V'ORAITA (TORAH SONG)*, introduced by Coopersmith, is one of the most widely sung Jewish melodies published in Christian hymnals.
Harry Coopersmith immigrated with his parents, Max Coopersmith (1868? - ?) and Pauline (Liptzen) Coopersmith (1878? - ?) in 1911, and settled in New York, where Harry...
CLARKE, Harry Dixon. b. Cardiff, Wales, 28 January 1889, d. Lexington, Kentucky, 14 October 1957. Harry Dixon Clarke was born in Cardiff (some sources indicate that he later changed his middle name to Dudley). Orphaned at a young age, he ran away from the orphanage, found his way to London, and went to sea for nearly a decade. With his brother's assistance, Clarke moved to Canada and then to the United States, where he experienced his conversion. After studying at Moody Bible...
WILLAN, (James) Healey. b. Balham, Surrey, England, 12 October 1880; d. Toronto, Canada, 16 February 1968. Willan's father was a chemist, his mother an amateur pianist who gave him his first instruction in music. He was educated at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne, Sussex, followed by private organ lessons with William Stevenson Hoyte in London. After a succession of organist-choirmaster positions in London, he moved in 1913 to Toronto, serving first at St Paul's Anglican Church, and...
SCHÜTZ, Heinrich. b. Gera, Saxony, 1585 (baptized 9 October); d. 6 November 1672. Schütz was the most important German composer of the 17th century, with an unprecedented contemporary international reputation. Born at Gera, he grew up in Weissenfels where his musical gifts were noticed in 1598 by Landgrave Moritz of Hessen-Kassel, who stayed overnight in the inn run by Schütz's father Christoph. The Landgrave subsequently arranged for the young Schütz to become a choirboy in his court capelle...
ISAAC [Ysaak, Ysac, Yzac], Henricus [Heinrich, Arrigo]. b. Flanders or Brabant, ca. 1450-55; d. Florence, 26 Mar 1517. He was born in Flanders or Brabant, but nothing else is known of his life before 1484, when a payment for his services as a composer appears in the Tyrolean court records, at Innsbruck. From 1485 to 1493 he was a singer at the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Florence. In 1496 he became court composer to Emperor Maximilian I. As one of the first internationally renowned musicians...
HILES, Henry. b. Shrewsbury, Shropshire, 31 December 1826; d. Worthing, Sussex, 20 October 1904. Hiles was a self-taught organist with the assistance of his brother John (1810-1882), and he was playing in local churches at an early age. At the age of 18 he became organist of the large parish church at Bury, Lancashire, moving to Bishopwearmouth, County Durham, where he was organist from 1847 to 1852. He travelled widely from 1852 to 1859, visiting Australia and other countries. On his return he...
BANCROFT, Henry Hugh. b. Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, 29 February 1904; d. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 11 September 1988. A student of E. P. Guthrie and J. S. Robson at Grimsby, Bancroft took his FRCO in 1925 and served as organist and choir director at Old Clee Parish Church for four years before emigrating to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1929 to begin his Canadian career at St Matthew's Anglican Church. He completed an external BMus at Durham in 1936. During 1936-37 he served at the Church of the...
LAWES, Henry. b. Dinton, Wiltshire, 1596 (baptized 5 January); d. London, 21 October 1662. His early career was as teacher of music in the household of the Earl of Bridgewater. In 1626 he was appointed to the Chapel Royal, and in 1631 he became a musician in the King's Musick. At the Restoration of 1660 he was reinstated to these positions, becoming additionally 'Composer in ye Private Musick for Lutes and Voices'. He was famous in his own time, holding concerts at his house which were attended...
PURCELL, Henry. b. London, perhaps Westminster, [autumn] 1659; d. Westminster, 21 November 1695. A Child of the Chapel Royal, he was educated at a time when choirs in England were being revived during the Restoration of Charles II (after the proscription of choirs and organs in church during the Commonwealth under Cromwell). He may have been taught by John Blow and Pelham Humfrey. His gifts were evident early, and after his voice broke in 1673 he was kept on at court as an assistant to John...
CUTLER, Henry Stephen. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 13 October 1825; d. Swampscott, Massachusetts, 5 December 1902. Cutler was an organist, choirmaster, and composer, known especially for his hymn tune, ALL SAINTS (also called ALL SAINTS NEW). The place of Cutler's death is sometimes given as Boston; however, he died at home in Swampscott, about 12 miles north of the city. Cutler's parents were Roland Cutler (1798-1873) and Martha Richardson Cutler (1803-?) (see Josiah Adams, The Genealogy of...
HILDEGARD of Bingen. b. Böckelheim, 1098; d. 17 September 1179. The last of ten children of Mechthild and Hildebert, members of the minor nobility, Hildegard was a weak child whose illness was linked throughout her life with distinctive visions. Committed to the religious life as a sort of tithe, Hildegard lived for several years with Jutta of Sponheim, who taught her to read and chant the psalter before both were enclosed as anchorites at Rupertsberg Abbey on 1 November 1112. Hildegard...
DISTLER, Hugo. b. Nürnberg, 24 Jun 1908; d. Berlin, 1 Nov 1942. Distler was educated in Nürnberg, where he also trained as a musician. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatoire (1927-30), quickly replacing conducting and piano studies with organ and composition, the two areas in which he later made his name. He was taught composition by Hermann Grabner and organ by Friedrich Högner, a member of the Orgelbewegung, who taught him the sound and style of the German protestant tradition of the...
IAKOBOS Peloponnesios (Protopsaltes). b. ca. 1740; d. 23 April 1800. A pupil of Ioannes Trapezuntios*, Iakobos Peloponnesios sang as domestikos at the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from 1764 until 1776, when he was appointed teacher at the patriarchal school of music together with Daniel Protopsaltes* and Petros Peloponnesios*. Around 1784 he returned to the Great Church as lampadarios, succeeding Petros Peloponnesios. After the death of Daniel Protopsaltes in December 1789 he was...
IOANNES Trapezuntios. b. date and place unknown; d. ca. 1769-73. Ioannes Trapezuntios, also called Ioannes Protopsaltes, was a pupil of Panagiotes Chalatzoglu. His name derives from his birth place Trapezunt/Trebizond (Trabzon in Turkey). A 1727 document by patriarch Païsios asserts that the domestikos Ioannes Kyritzes was appointed teacher at the newly founded patriarchal school of music; this Ioannes Kyritzes can be identified as Ioannes Trapezuntios. In 1728 Ioannes called himself...
SANKEY, Ira David. b. Edinburgh, near New Castle, Pennsylvania, 28 August 1840; d. Brooklyn, New York 14 August 1908. He was one of eleven children born of the marriage of devout Methodists David and Mary (née Leeper) Sankey. The family settled a few miles east in Western Reserve Harbour and attended the nearby Methodist Church in King's Chapel where Sankey at age 16 was 'converted'. Sankey learned to sing hymns in Sunday school and in the family hymn sings. 'By the time he was eight . . . he...
PROKHANOFF, Ivan Stepanovich. b. Vladikavkas, Russia, 17 April 1869; d. Berlin, Germany, 6 October 1935. Prokhanoff was a gifted author, preacher, poet and hymn writer, and a primary leader of the evangelical community in Russia. St Petersburg was the center of his activity. Here he founded the Russia Evangelical Association (1905), and the All-Russian Evangelical Association (1908).
His parents grew up in the Molokan ('milk drinkers') tradition of Russia, a pietistic movement that emerged...
MARASCHIN, Jaci C. b. Bagé, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 12 December 1929; d. São Paulo, 29 June 2009. At the end of his career Maraschin was Emeritus Professor at the São Paulo Methodist University and an ordained priest of the São Paulo Anglican DioceSse of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church, part of the Anglican Communion. He started his musical education early in life with private tutors for music theory and piano. He held a Diploma from the Instituto Musical de Porto Alegre, Brazil, and...
BERTHIER, Jacques. b. Auxerre, France, 27 June 1923; d. Paris, 27 June 1994. Berthier was the son of the organist of Auxerre Cathedral. After initial encouragement and training in Auxerre, he went to the César Franck School in Paris. One of his teachers there was Guy de Lioncourt, whose daughter Germaine he later married. He was organist of the Jesuit church in Paris, St Ignace (named after Ignatius of Loyola), where he worked until his death on his 71st birthday.
In 1955 he was asked by the...
HINTZE, Jakob. b. Bernau, near Berlin, 4 September 1622; d. Berlin, 5 May 1702. He was the son of the town musician of Bernau, later town musician of Spandau. He was a pupil of the Berlin town musician Paul Nieressen, after which he studied in various towns near the Baltic, Stettin, Elbing, Königsberg, and Danzig. He also spent some time in Denmark. He was town musician ('Stadtmusiker') at Stettin (1651-59), and became Court Musician to the Elector of Brandenburg in 1666.
The Berlin publisher,...
MINCHIN, James Blundell. b. Hartwell, Victoria, Australia, 29 November 1942. James (Jim) Minchin was educated at Camberwell Grammar School (1948-59), where he studied the piano and organ. He attended Trinity College, University of Melbourne, from 1960-66, completing a BA in Classics and a ThL. There, too, he began a long and close involvement with the Student Christian movement. In 1967 he was ordained an Anglican priest in the diocese of Melbourne, and served at St George's, Malvern (1966-68),...
CLEVELAND, James. b. Chicago, Illinois, 5 December 1931; d. Los Angeles, California, 9 February 1991. Singer, composer, pianist, choir director, recording artist, James Cleveland is regarded as the single most important figure in African-American gospel music in the 20th century. As a young boy, Cleveland sang in the choir of Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church, where the ministers of music were Thomas A. Dorsey* (who in 1930 had introduced the church to his 'gospel blues'), and Roberta Martin...
VAUGHAN, James David. b. Giles County, Tennessee, 14 December 1864; d. Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, 9 February 1941. Known as 'the father of southern gospel music', Vaughan grew up in Middle Tennessee and attended his first shape note singing school as a teenager (see Shape-note hymnody*). By the age of eighteen he was already teaching singing classes, and he formed a gospel quartet with his brothers. In 1890 he married and moved to Texas where he was influenced by Ephraim T. (E. T.) Hildebrand...
LEACH, James. b. Townhead, near Rochdale, Lancashire, 1761 (baptized 25 December); d. Blackley, near Manchester, 8 February 1798. He was a handloom weaver by trade, and a Wesleyan Methodist. His talent as a singer and composer soon earned him a great reputation in Lancashire, and like many of his class and region, he was passionately committed to the singing of psalmody, and to more ambitious choral performances at local musical festivals. He is said to have sung as an alto in the Handel...
LYON, James. b. Newark, New Jersey, 1 July 1735; d. Machias, Maine, 12 October 1794. Lyon was a Presbyterian minister, patriot, tunebook compiler, and composer. He is known primarily for compiling the tunebook Urania.
Lyon was the son of Zopher Lyon (1717-1744) and Mary Wood Lyon (1716-1746). Little is known of his childhood and musical training. He attended the College of New Jersey, then known as Nassau Hall, a large building completed in 1756 (now Princeton University). The 1759...
BENDER, Jan Oskar. b. in Haarlem, Holland, 3 February 1909; d. Hanerau, Germany, 29 December 1994. Jan Bender was a distinguished church musician, organist, educator, and composer, for whom hymnody was very important. His mother, Margarette Schindler (1874-1951), was German. His Dutch father, Hermann Bender (1870-1908), a piano dealer, died the year in which Jan was born. In 1922 his mother moved back to her native town, Lübeck, Germany, where Jan studied organ, and began to compose at the...
JONCAS, Jan Michael. b. Minneapolis, Minnesota, 20 December 1951. Michael Joncas, pre-eminent liturgical scholar, teacher and composer, majored in English at the College of St Thomas, St Paul, Minnesota (BA, 1975); liturgical studies at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (MA, 1978), and liturgical theology at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome (SLL,1989 SLD, 1991). In 1980 he was ordained a Roman Catholic presbyter for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis,...
MARSHALL, Jane Anne Manton. b. Dallas, Texas, 5 December 1924; d. Dallas, 29 May 2019. Jane Marshall attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas (BM 1945, MM 1968), where she later taught English in the University College; she taught choral arranging, music theory, and conducting in the Music Division, Meadows School of The Arts, and at Perkins School of Theology. In the latter she directed the Church Music Summer School, 1975-2010. Her honors include the distinguished alumnae award from...
SIBELIUS, Jean (Julius Christian). b. Hämeenlinna, Finland, 8 December 1865; d. Jārvenpāā, 20 September 1957. An able violinist as a child, he studied with Martin Wigelius in Finland before moving abroad to Vienna and Berlin for further study. His symphony Kullervo was first performed in 1892, and it was this work that gained attention in his homeland. Other works with a national flavour, such as the Karelia Suite (1893) followed, and with Finlandia (1899-1900), written for a Finnish pageant...
STEELE, Jean Woodward. b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 22 February 1910; d. 1 September 1984. Jean Steele received a BA degree from Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1932). Four years later she joined the music publishing arm of Westminster Press, of the United Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, remaining there until her retirement in 1975. Working with two music editors, Calvin Weiss Laufer* (1874-1938) and W. Lawrence Curry (1906-1966), Steele collaborated on a number of...
LANGLAIS, Jean-Marie-Hyacinthe. b. La Fontenelle, Brittany, 15 February 1907; d. 8 May 1991. The eldest of four children born to a stonecutter and seamstress, Langlais became completely blind by the age of three. His handicap and the poverty of his family prevented him from studying music until the age of ten when he obtained a scholarship to study at the School for the Young Blind in Paris where his teachers were René Clavers, violin, Maurice Blazy, piano, and André Marchal, organ. In 1927, he...
CLARKE, Jeremiah (I). b. ca. 1674; d. London, 1 December 1707. He was a chorister of the Chapel Royal from about 1685 to 1692, and a pupil of John Blow (1648/9–1708). He was organist of Winchester College 1692–5, of St Paul's Cathedral from 1699, and of the Chapel Royal from 1704. He was a prolific and successful composer of both sacred and secular music. His ever-popular 'Trumpet Voluntary' originated as a harpsichord piece called 'The Prince of Denmark's March'; the trumpet was introduced...
OWENS, Jimmy Lloyd. b. Clarksdale, Mississippi, 9 December 1930. After school at Jackson, Mississippi, he attended Millsaps College, and was a jazz band arranger; after a conversion he directed music in several churches in southern California. He married Carol Owens* in 1954. Beginning in the 'Jesus Movement', the Owens were active in writing contemporary Christian musicals, performing and recording in various places in California, and doing musical missions for the Church of the Way in Los...
WISE, Joseph Edward, Jr. b. Louisville, Kentucky, 19 August 1939. Wise attended St. Mary's Seminary/University in Baltimore, Maryland (BA 1961, STB 1963); Spalding College in Louisville (M Ed. 1965); and the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC (MA, 1969). Wise was one of the most performed and influential composers of liturgical music in what became known as the 'folk Mass movement' after the Second Vatican Council. Other representative composers from this era include Ray Repp, Jack...
CRÜGER (Krüger), Johann. b. Gross Breesen near Guben, Niederlausitz, 9 April 1598; d. Berlin, 23 February 1662. German Cantor, composer and music theorist. Crüger stands as the most significant melodist since the Reformation. 80 melodies and 19 reworkings of melodies have been attributed to him (Fischer-Krückeberg, 1933). His melodies point stylistically to the transition from 'Kirchenchoral zur Andachtsarie' ('church chorale to devotional song', Moser, p. 84).
Crüger was above all one of the...
PETER, Johann Friedrich (John Frederick). b. Herrendijk, the Netherlands, 19 May 1746; d. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 13 July 1813. Born into a Moravian Church community where his father was minister, Peter was educated at the Moravian Boys' Schools in Haarlem and Zeist, with further study at the church's academy in Niesky, Germany. In 1765, he entered the seminary at Barby, Germany, for theological training, completing his studies in 1769. In 1770, he was sent by the church to Bethlehem,...
AHLE, Johann Georg. b. Mühlhausen, 1651 (baptized 12 June); d. Mühlhausen, 1706 (buried 5 May). He was the son of Johann Rudolf Ahle*, whom he followed as organist of St Blasius (his successor was Johann Sebastian Bach*). Like his father he became a member of the town council, and was a popular local composer of songs for weddings and of sacred music. As a poet and musician he was awarded the 'Dichterkrone' ('poetic crown') by the Emperor Leopold I in 1680. He also wrote a series of...
EBELING, Johann Georg. b. Lüneberg, 8 July 1637; d. Stettin, 4 December 1676. He was the son of a bookseller. He studied at the Johanneum. He also received a sound musical education at the Johanniskirche from the Cantor, Michael Jacobi. While studying at the Helmstadt University (1658-60), his musical talents were sponsored by Christian Ludwig. After spending time at the Collegium Musicum in Hamburg (1660-2), he took himself to Berlin in 1662 where he took on the post of Cantor at St Nicholas...
SCHICHT, Johann Gottfried. b. Reichenau, 29 September 1753; d. Leipzig, 16 February 1823. Schicht attended the Gymnasium in Zittau, near Reichenau, where he also studied music. He was a keyboardist, violinist and singer. Schicht began to study law at Leipzig University from 1776, but his musical interests, such as participating in the Grosses Concert under J.A. Hiller, led him to abandon his university studies. Schicht played in the Musikübende Gesellschaft and began playing in Gewandhaus...
SCHEIN, Johann Hermann. b. Grünheim, near Annaberg, Saxony, 20 January 1586; d. Leipzig, 19 November 1630. At an early age, after the death of his pastor father, Schein's family moved to Dresden. At the age of 13 he was singing soprano in the court chapel of the Elector of Saxony and receiving instruction in theoretical and practical music from the Capellmeister Rogier Michael. After studies in Schulpforta he matriculated at the University of Leipzig, where he studied law and liberal arts and...
HORN, Johann. b. Domaschitz, Bohemia ca. 1490; d. 11 February 1547. His original name was Johann Roh, but he styled himself Cornu in Latin and Horn in German. He was ordained priest in 1518 and became a senior cleric in the Moravian church. He is known for two books: his Písnĕ chval božských (Prague, 1541), and his edition of the Bohemian hymnbook Ein Gesangbuch der Brüder in Behemen und Merherrn published in Nuremberg in 1544; he may have been the author or at least the translator of many of...
STEINER, Johann Ludwig. b. Zürich, 1 July 1688; d. Zürich, 27 March 1761. He was the son of the town trumpeter of Zürich, whom he succeeded in 1705, carrying on the family tradition of providing the town trumpeter for almost 200 years, from 1617 to 1803. Johann was an accomplished musician, who had organ lessons from L. Kellersberger at Baden (Aargau), and who played other instruments. He was also a skilled clock-maker. He was the composer of the first Swiss single-author collection of hymn...
ALTENBURG, Johann Michael. b. Alach, near Erfurt, 27 May 1584; d. Erfurt, 12 February 1640. He was educated at school at Erfurt and at the University (BA 1599, MA 1603). He was a schoolmaster at Erfurt, first as a teacher at the Reglerschule and then as Rektor of the school connected with St Andreas' Church (1600-09). He was also Kantor at St Andreas' from 1601. In 1609 he left teaching to become a pastor, and was assistant at two parishes near Erfurt before becoming pastor at Tröchtelborn...
ROSENMÜLLER, Johann. b. in or near Oelsnitz (Vogtland), 24 August 1617 (?); d. Wolfenbüttel, 1684 (buried 12 September). He received his early musical training at the Lateinschule at Oelsnitz. In 1640 Rosenmüller matriculated as a student of the theological faculty at Leipzig University and in 1642 he became Collaborator (auxiliary teacher) at the Thomaskirche, where he was promoted to Baccalaureus funerum (first assistant) in 1650. From 1651 Rosenmüller also held the post of organist at St...
AHLE, Johann Rudolf. b. Mühlhausen, Thuringia, 24 December 1625, d. Mühlhausen, 9 July 1673. Ahle began his education at the Gymnasium at Mühlhausen, moved ca. 1643 to Göttingen, and started to study theology at Erfurt University in 1645. Nothing is known of his musical training in these years, but during his university years he took up the office of Kantor at the school and church of St. Andreas in Erfurt (1646). Ahle returned to Mühlhausen in 1650, where he became organist at St. Blasius in...
SCHOP, Johann. b. Hamburg, ca. 1590; d. Hamburg, summer 1667. No documents survive pertaining to his youth and school years. In 1614, Schop gained probationary employment as a musician at the court chapel of Duke Friedrich Ulrich in Wolfenbüttel. His varied instrumental expertise on the lute, cornet and trombone, and his excellent violin playing, led to a permanent post there in 1615. Nevertheless, in the same year Schop moved to the court chapel of King Christian IV of Denmark in Copenhagen,...
BACH, Johann Sebastian. b. Eisenach, 21 March 1685; d. Leipzig, 28 July 1750. He was the most important member of a Thuringian family of musicians, whose technical accomplishment as a performer was revered by his contemporaries, and whose genius as a composer was not only recognized during his own time but has significantly influenced the development of Western music.
He was born in Eisenach and attended the local Latin school, the same one that Martin Luther* had attended two hundred years...
HERBST, Johannes. b. Kempten, Swabia, 23 July 1735; d. Salem, North Carolina, USA, 15 January 1812. Herbst was educated at the Moravian Church school in Herrnhut, Saxony. He served the church in various non-ministerial capacities in the Moravian communities of Gnadenfrey, Gnadenberg, and Kleinwelke (in Germany) and Fulneck (in England). After his ordination as a minister in the Moravian Church in 1774, he was superintendent of the communities of Neudietendorf and Gnadenfrey. In 1786 Herbst and...
AINSLIE, John. b. Taunton, Somerset, 20 May 1942. He was choirmaster at the English College in Rome (1963-66). He has worked as editor of Roman Catholic resource books, including the Simple Gradual (1969) and Praise the Lord (2nd edition, 1972). He co-edited English Catholic Worship (1979) — the first survey, post Vatican II, of new liturgical and music developments in England. He is General Secretary of the international study group Universa Laus.
Ainslie has composed several strong tunes...
LLOYD, John Ambrose. b. Mold, North Wales, 14 June 1815; d. Liverpool, 14 November 1874. John Lloyd (he took the name Ambrose later) received a good education at Mold in Welsh, English and music. He moved in 1830 with his elder brother to Liverpool, where he was a commercial traveller and a distinguished amateur musician. In 1841 he took charge of the music at the newly founded Chapel Salem, Brownlow. There he founded a choir and taught the members to read music, using an early form of Tonic...
STEVENSON, (Sir) John Andrew. b. Dublin, 1761; d. Kells, County Meath, 14 September 1833. Born in Crane Lane off Dame Street, Dublin, he was an indentured choirboy at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, in 1775, receiving tutorage under Richard Woodward junior and Samuel Murphy. He was appointed stipendiary at St Patrick's Cathedral on 20 July 1775 by Dean Cradock and at Christ Church Cathedral in 1781; then vicar choral at St Patrick's Cathedral in 1783 and at Christ Church Cathedral in 1800. He...
ANTES, John (Johann). b. Frederick, Pennsylvania, 24 March 1740; d. Bristol, England, 17 December 1811. Born near the Moravian Church community of Bethlehem, Antes was educated at the Moravian Boys' School in Bethlehem, where his talent in music was encouraged. During the early 1760s, he established an instrument-making atelier in Bethlehem where he crafted violins, violas, and violoncellos (he is known to have made at least seven instruments, of which two are still extant). Feeling the call of...
DAHLE, John. b. in the interior valley county of Valdres, Norway, 3 January 1853; d. St Paul, Minnesota, 16 July 1931. His father was the klokker (precentor or lead singer) in his local church, and singing teacher in the parish school. Dahle graduated from Hamar Normal School (1870), learned to play the violin and organ, and went to Oslo to study language, drama, and singing. In 1876 he married Johanna Sørlie. They came to the United States where he taught singing and Norwegian at St Olaf...
DAMASCENE, John, St (John Chrysorrhoas, John of Damascus). b. ca. 655; d. ca. 745. John received a good literary and philosophical education in his native Damascus, and became renowned in Constantinople as the author of liturgical hymns. Eventually he became a monk, probably at Jerusalem Cathedral rather than at the monastery of St Sabas, as has traditionally been believed (see Conticello, 2000, Louth, 2002). He became the theological advisor of Patriarch John V of Jerusalem, who ordained him...
EDWARDS, John David. b. Penderlwyngoch, Gwnnws, Cardiganshire, 19 December 1805; d. Llanddoget, Rhosymedre, Denbighshire, 24 November 1885. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford. He took Holy Orders (deacon 1832, priest 1833) and became vicar of Rhosymedre from 1843 until his death. He was a prolific musician, and much in demand as an Eisteddfod adjudicator. He published Original Sacred Music in two volumes (1839, 1843). He is chiefly known as the composer of the tune RHOSYMEDRE (sometimes...
DOWLAND, John. b. 1563; d. London, between 20 January and 20 February 1626. Nothing is known about the first 17 years of Dowland's life, but it is thought that he underwent his musical apprenticeship in the service of courtiers such as Sir Henry Cobham (with whom he spent some four years in Paris), George Carey, and Henry Noel. In 1588 he was admitted to the degree of B.Mus at Oxford. In the same year John Case, in his Apologia musices, listed him among the most celebrated musicians of the day....
LAMPE, John Frederick. b. perhaps Braunschweig/Brunswick, 1702/3; d. Edinburgh, 25 July 1751. Lampe was a German-born composer and performer, who was described as coming from Brunswick in the records of the University of Helmstedt, where he studied law from 1718 to 1720. He settled in Britain from 1725/6, establishing himself as a harpsichordist and bassoonist, performing under Handel*'s direction, and also as a composer of operatic music. In the mid-1740s, he came into contact with John* and...
GOWANS, John. b. Blantyre, Lanarkshire, 13 November 1934; d. South London, 8 December 2012. Gowans became a Salvation Army officer in 1955, after National Service in the Royal Army Educational Corps. At school he developed an interest in poetry and drama, and in 1966 was co-opted to write the lyrics for a Salvation Army youth musical, with the composer John Larsson. Alongside his appointments in Britain, France and USA, he went on to write ten musicals on Biblical and Salvation Army themes,...
MAUNDER, John Henry. b. Chelsea, London, 21 February 1858; d. Brighton, Sussex, 25 January 1920. He was the only son of John and Eliza Maunder. He married Ellen Fanny Fulgoux Dakin of Wandsworth, March 1880: they had one daughter, Winifred, b. October 1884.
Little of Maunder's early life is known, except that he studied at the Royal Academy of Music. Two announcements in the London Gazette (27 April 1877 and 2 December 1898) and two census entries, 1891 and 1911, confirm his employment as an...
HUGHES, John. b. Dowlais, Glamorgan, 22 November 1873; d. Llantwit Fardre, Pontypridd, Glamorgan, 14 May 1932. Like so many of the leading musicians in Wales, John Hughes, the composer of CWM RHONDDA, worked in the coal industry. He started work at the age of twelve at the Glynn Collery at Llanilltud Faerdref. In 1905 he was appointed clerk at the Great Western Railway, Pontypridd, at the southern end of the Rhondda Valley, where he remained for over forty years. He was active as a deacon and...
TUCKER, John Ireland. b. Brooklyn, New York, 26 November, 1819; d. Albany, New York, 17 August 1895. Tucker was an Episcopal priest and editor of several music editions of nineteenth-century Episcopal hymnals and related materials (see Episcopal Church, USA, hymnody*).
Tucker's parents, Fanning Cobham Tucker (1782-1856) and Ann Moore Sands (1781-1833), were born to well-established New York families. Fanning's father, Robert Tucker (1746-1792), was the first to receive the degree Doctor of...
KOUKOUZELES, John, St [Ioannes]. b. ca. 1280; d. ca. 1350. A singer and prolific composer from Mount Athos, Koukouzeles was the foremost exponent of the kalophonic vocal style. In his works we note a marked expansion both of music and text. He increases the length of traditional melodies in three ways: (i) by setting very many notes to the individual syllables of the hymnody (melismas); (ii) by interpolating new words and phrases in pre-existing texts thereby giving him scope to write more...
BELL, John Lamberton. b. Kilmarnock, 20 November 1949. He was educated at the University of Glasgow 1968-71 (MA), 1972-74 and 1977-78 (BD). During the intervening periods he served as President of the Students Representative Council (1974-75) and as Associate Pastor for the English Reformed Church in the Netherlands (1975-77). While a student he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow (1977-80).
His subsequent career was as follows: Youth Advisor, Presbytery of Glasgow (1978-83); Youth...
MILTON, John, the elder. b. ca. 1563; d. London, 1647 (buried 15 March). He is believed to have been a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford, and may have been born near Oxford. He moved to London in 1585, where his son, the poet John Milton*, was born in 1608. He was a scrivener, who became sufficiently prosperous to retire to Horton, Buckinghamshire, in 1632. He returned to London in 1643. His music was greatly valued by his contemporaries: it is referred to by his son in the affectionate poem...
POLLOCK, John. b. Glasgow, Scotland, 27 October 1852; d. Belfast, Northern Ireland, 4 January 1935. The son of Janet, née Riddell, and Alexander Pollock, a grocer and tea merchant, John was baptized into the Free Church of Scotland, where his father was an Elder of the Kirk. His lively grasp of ideas and propensity for instructing others were in evidence at an early stage: he became a Sunday School teacher at the age of twelve.
At first attracted to a career in business, he entered the Arts...
RICHARDS, John ('Isalaw'). b. Hirael, Bangor, Caernarfonshire 13 July 1843; d. 15 September 1901. He attended a school in Birmingham, where he began to learn music. On returning to Bangor he worked as a newspaper proof-reader, established a Tonic Sol-fa* class, wrote on musical subjects for newspapers and periodicals, and acted as a copyist and editor of the music of others. His own compositions include part-songs and anthems, but he is now best remembered for his hymn tune SANCTUS, set to...
ROBERTS, John ('Ieuan Gwyllt'). b. Tanrhiwfelen, near Aberystwyth, 27 December 1822; d. Y Fron, Llanfaglan, Caernarfonshire, 14 May 1877. Roberts was born into a musical family, and was brought up near Aberystwyth. In 1842 he obtained a place in a pharmacy in that town, but in 1844 took a post as schoolmaster. After a period of training in the Borough Road Normal School in London he returned to Wales in 1844 and became clerk to a firm of solicitors in Aberystwyth. In 1852 he moved to Liverpool...
HODGES, John Sebastian Bach. b. Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, 12 January 1830; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 February 1895. An Episcopal priest, Hodges composed several hymn tunes, including EUCHARISTIC HYMN, that are found in present-day hymnals.
J. Sebastian B. Hodges (as his name often appears) was the son of Edward Hodges* and brother of Faustina H. Hodges*, George Frederick Handel Hodges (1822-1842), and Jubal Hodges (1828-1870). The latter was also an Episcopal priest, and...
THOMAS, John (II). b. Blaenannerch, Cardiganshire, 11 December 1839; d. Llanwrtyd Wells, Breconshire, 25 February 1921. He was educated a Blaenannerch and at the Adpar grammar school in Newcastle Emlyn. Largely self-taught in music, he began to compose, and won prizes for part-songs at National Eisteddfodau in the 1860s. Thomas married in 1871 and moved to Llanwrtyd, where he remained for the rest of his life, enjoying popularity as an adjudicator and conductor of the Cymanfa Ganu*. He wrote...
Troutbeck, John. b. Blencowe, Cumberland, England, 12 November 1832; d. London, 11 October 1899. An Anglican minister, church musician, and translator, Troutbeck received degrees from University College, Oxford (BA 1856; MA 1858). The son of George Troutbeck of Penrith, John married Elizabeth Forbes (1832–1923) in 1856. Following his ordination (deacon, 1855, priest, 1856), he served as precentor at Manchester Cathedral (1865–1869) and a minor canon and precentor at Westminster Abbey in 1869....
TUFTS, John. b. Medford, Massachusetts, 26 February 1689; d. Amesbury, Massachusetts, 17 August 1750. Tufts was a minister, merchant, probably a singing teacher, and possibly a composer. He compiled An Introduction to the Art of Singing Psalm-Tunes (1721?), considered the first American music textbook.
John Tufts was the third son of Captain Peter Tufts (1648-1721) and Mercy Cotton Tufts (1666-1715). He graduated from Harvard College (AB, 1708), and was ordained on 30 June 1714 in connection...
WIMBER, John. b. Kirksville, Missouri, 25 February 1934; d. Orange County, California, 17 November 1997. One of the 20th century's leading charismatic pastors, Wimber is known primarily as a founder of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship. While still in high school, he began a professional career in music, winning first place in an international Jazz festival in 1953. His ability as a pianist and vocalist led to performances with several Rock and Roll musical groups. Experiencing a conversion in...
YLVISAKER, John Carl. b. Fargo, North Dakota, 11 September 1937; d. Waverly, Iowa, 9 March 2017. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) composer of over 1,000 songs and hymns, church musician, and a performer, he was influenced by the music of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, including the songs of Pete Seeger (1919-2014). The content of many of the texts and the folk musical style of his songs led Gracia Grindal* to call him the 'Bob Dylan of Lutheranism' (Ortárola, Star...
GELINEAU, Joseph. b. Champ-sur-Layon, Maine et Loire, France, 31 October 1920; d. Sallanches, France, 8 August 2008. Gelineau studied music at the École César Franck in Paris, and theology in the seminary at Lyon Fourvière. He became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1941, and was ordained in 1951. He was sent to Paris, to the Centre de Pastorale Liturgique, and also taught at the Institut Catholique. He became one of the most influential and best known sacred musicians in the Catholic...
HAYDN, (Franz) Joseph. b. Rohrau, Lower Austria, 31 March 1732; d. Gumpendorf, near Vienna, 31 May 1809. He and his brother Michael Haydn* grew up in the environment of the late Austrian Baroque period — he was a chorister at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna and later enjoyed a long career as a composer, initially under patronage (notably with Nicholas of Esterházy between 1761 and 1790) but later, able to earn his living without aristocratic support, he was a free artist who was lionised in...
PARRY, Joseph. b. Merthyr Tydfil, 21 May 1841; d. Penarth, Glamorgan, 17 February 1903. The most important figure in Welsh music in the final years of the 19th century, Parry was born into a poor family. By the age of nine he was working in a coal mine, and at twelve in a steel works. As in so many Welsh industrial towns, there was a strong musical life, and Parry sang in an oratorio choir from an early age. In 1854 his family moved to Danville, Pennsylvania, USA, where there was an expatriate...
NAVARRO, Juan. b. 1525–1530; d. 25 September 1580. Born in the region of Marchena, in 1549 Navarro was a tenor singer in the service of the Duke of Arcos in that town, and subsequently sang at Jaén Cathedral and then Málaga Cathedral (1553-1555). He went on to hold the post of maestro de capilla successively at the collegiate church in Valladolid (from 1562) and the cathedrals of Ávila (from 1564), Salamanca (from 1566), Ciudad Rodrigo (from 1574), and Palencia (from 1578), where he died.
In...
CLEVELAND, Judge Jefferson. b. Elberton, Elbert County, Georgia, 21 September 1937; d. Washington, DC, 20 June 1986. Pianist, vocalist, composer, and prominent scholar and editor/arranger of AfricanAmerican congregational song, Cleveland was salutatorian at Clark College, Atlanta, Georgia (BA in music, 1958); he then attended Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois (MME, 1959), and Boston University (DMA, 1972). He taught at three historically black Christian colleges: Claflin...
HARRINGTON, Karl Pomeroy. b. Great Falls (now Somersworth), New Hampshire, 13 June 1861; d. Berkeley, California, 14 November 1953. A professor of Latin at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, Harrington was a music editor of The Methodist Hymnal (New York, 1905) [MH 1905] and composer of hymn tunes. The best known of these is CHRISTMAS SONG, for the poem 'There's a song in the air' (see below).
Until the age of twelve, Harrington was home-schooled. His mother, Eliza Cynthia...
KASSIA the Nun. ca. 800-805; d. by 867. Well educated in Byzantine imperial court circles, Kassia became an hegoumena (abbess). More than twenty securely attributed works survive, principally stichera. Kassia is one of four known female Byzantine hymnodists. She appears to have written both texts and music herself, thus being the only known Byzantine female melode (composer of both text and music). Her most famous composition in her lifetime was the sticheron 'Augoustou monarchēsantos'...
DAVIS, Katherine Kennicott. b. St Joseph, Missouri, 25 June 1892; d. Concord, Massachusetts, 20 April 1980. After education at St Joseph's High School, Davis studied at Wellesley College (BA, 1914), where she won the Billings Prize for Composition. After additional studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, she returned to her alma mater to teach piano and music theory. At some point she studied for one month with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Davis taught singing and piano at...
GETTY, (Julian) Keith. b. 16 December 1974. Getty is a Northern Irish hymn-writer, composer and performer. His work is often collaborative, working together with his wife, Kristyn Getty* and Stuart Townend*. In partnership with Townend, he has been responsible for some of the most popular hymns of the early 21st century, most famously 'In Christ alone my hope is found'* (2001). This hymn has become one of the best known of all 21st-century hymns; it has frequently featured at or near the top of...
KOSMAS of Maiouma, St (The Hagiopolite, the Jerusalemite, the Melode, the Monk, the Poet). b. ca. 675; d. 752/754. He was born in the patriarchate of Jerusalem, probably in Jerusalem itself. According to later hagiography Kosmas lived as a monk at Saint Sabas, but according to recent research it is more likely that he served at the Resurrection Cathedral at Jerusalem. He was elected bishop of Maiouma in Phoenicia, ca. 743, at the age of nearly 70.
Together with St John Damascene*, Kosmas was...
GETTY, Kristyn (née Lennox). b. 22 May 1980. She is a Northern Irish singer and hymn-writer. Best known for her work in collaboration with her husband Keith Getty*, and Stuart Townend*, she features prominently as a soloist or lead singer on their albums and continues to perform with her husband as part of an Irish-American folk band. She and her husband are frequently cited as co-authors and their work features strong Celtic influences, both in words and music. Their series New Irish Hymns has...
KAISER, Kurt Frederick. b. Chicago, 17 December 1934; d. Waco, Texas, 12 November 2018. Kaiser grew up in a family that loved hymns; his father Otto was chairman of a Plymouth Brethren hymnbook committee. Kurt was educated at The American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, and Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (BM, 1958, MM, 1959). A gifted pianist, composer, arranger, and record producer, he was associated with Word Music in Waco, Texas from 1959 to 1989. Kaiser was a founding member...
MILLER, Lester David Jr. b. Lenoir, North Carolina, 15 April 1919; d. Columbia, South Carolina, 21 May 2003. David Miller was a minister, musician, and teacher. His father, for whom he was named, was a Lutheran pastor. He earned degrees from Lenoir-Rhyne College (now University) (AB, 1939) and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (BD, 1942). While a student, he served as minister of music at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Columbia, South Carolina. Following graduation and ordination, he held a...
BÉVENOT, Ludovic Eloi Isidore Jean Joseph (Monastic name: Laurence) OSB. b. Birmingham, 21 June 1901; d. 22 October 1990. He was born to French immigrant parents: his father was professor of Romance Languages at Birmingham University. He was educated at Mount St Mary's Preparatory School, Derbyshire (1909-14) and Ampleforth College, Yorkshire (1914-19). He joined the monastic community at Ampleforth in 1919. He read Mathematics at St Benet's Hall, Oxford University (1922-25). From 1928 to 1951...
SCHULTZ, Lawrence Edmond ('Larry E.'). b. Tulsa, Oklahoma, 3 October 1965. Larry E. Schultz is a composer of hymn texts and music and an active church musician. He received his early training in music through churches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. From age thirteen, he participated as vocalist, pianist, trumpeter, choral conductor, and congregational song leader. At age fifteen, he became the part-time Minister of Music for Tulsa's Phoenix Avenue Baptist Church, his home congregation, and was ordained to...
BARTLETT, Lawrence Francis. b. Mosman, Sydney, 13 February 1933, d. Melbourne, 17 March 2002. He was educated at public schools in Mosman and Manly, and at the North Technical High School, where he accompanied the school choir and made musical arrangements for it. From 1950 to 1957 he studied harmony, piano, organ and singing at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and in 1960 at the Melbourne Conservatorium.
After holding the position of Assistant Director of Music at the King's School,...
Lim, Swee Hong (林瑞峰).b. Singapore; 11 June 1963.
Lim, Swee Hong is a Singaporean church musician, composer, and educator. Born into a Chinese Christian family, Lim inherited the faith of his maternal heritage as a fourth-generation Christian. His father (Baptist) and mother (Presbyterian) instilled the value of service to God. Along with his siblings, Lim was encouraged by his mother to serve the church through music-making. Lim began to learn musical instruments at an early age, planting the...
GOOD, Linnea. b. Boston, Massachusetts, 24 March 1962. Born in Boston, Linnea Good was raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick. From an early age she was steeped in music. Her father, Frank Good (1938–2015), was well known in the provinces of eastern Canada as a hilarious and engaging performer in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. At age 12, 'at an age when other kids were leaving the church', Good notes, she was invited to sing in the choir of the local Anglican church.
Good pondered a vocation as...
KROEHLER, Lois Clara. b. Saint Louis, Missouri, 9 September 1927; d. Bremerton, Washington, 3 August 2019. Missionary, translator, music teacher, hymn writer, and hymnal editor, Lois Kroehler lived in Belleville, Illinois, Ft. Collins, Colorado, and Lyman, Nebraska during her childhood. She graduated from the University of Nebraska (1949) with a major in Spanish and went immediately to Cuba upon graduation to serve as an English language secretary for the Cuban Director of Presbyterian Schools...
BOURGEOIS, Loys. b. Paris, ca. 1510–15; d. ca. 1559. Bourgeois was a composer of chansons who adhered to the Reformed religion. Born in Paris, he emigrated from Lyons to Geneva in 1545 and was granted citizenship in 1547. From 1539 to 1557 he worked as musical editor for successive editions of the Calvinist psalter of Clément Marot* and Théodore de Bèze* (see French Protestant psalms*), adapting old Latin hymn melodies (see Medieval hymns and hymnals*) and sequence* melodies, and composing some...
CAMPBELL-WILLIAMS, Lucie Eddie. b. Duck Hill, Mississippi, 30 April 1885; d. Nashville, Tennessee, 3 January 1963.
Early years, education, and career
Hymn writer, singer, music director, educator, and mentor to scores of African American church musicians, Campbell, one of nine children, was the daughter of formerly enslaved African Americans in Mississippi. She rose to be one of the most important figures of her era in African American gospel song, and the most prominent voice in shaping the...
LINDEMAN, Ludvig Mathias. b. 28 November 1812; d. 23 May 1887. Born at Trondhjem [Trondheim], Lindeman was the best known member of a family of Norwegian church musicians. Of German ancestry, his grandfather, Christopher Madsen (1706/08-1788), studied medicine in London, and changed his name to Lindeman after establishing a medical practice in Trondheim. His father, Ole Andreas Lindeman (1769-1857) was for 57 years organist of Vår Frue (Our Lady's) church, Trondheim, a concert pianist, and...
Senfl, Ludwig. b. ca. 1489/91; d. 1542/3. Of Swiss origin, Senfl became a choirboy in the Imperial court chapel of Maximilian I in 1496. He was a pupil of Henricus Isaac*, and remained attached to the Imperial court choir, both as an alto and as a composer, until its dissolution on Maximilian's death in 1519. By 1523 he was in Munich, serving Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria. Although Senfl was sympathetic to the reformation whilst his employer remained a committed Catholic, he kept this post until...
DAWN, Maggi Eleanor. b. 1959. Maggi Dawn is a British musician, author, theologian, and Church of England priest. Prior to ordination, she worked as a singer-songwriter. She remains active as a guitarist and singer. She held chaplaincies at King's College and Robinson College, Cambridge University; from 2011 to 2019 she was Associate Dean for Marquand Chapel and Associate Professor of Theology and Literature at Yale University. She was Principal of St Mary's College, Durham University, UK from...
MAKARIOS the Hieromonk. b. ca. 1770; d. 1836. A professor of Byzantine chant, typographer, translator and composer, Makarios was born in Perieţi, Walachia (southern Romania); his date of birth, accepted by most of his biographers, remains uncertain: estimates oscillate between 1750 (Bishop Iosif Naniescu) and 1780 (Ion Popescu-Pasărea). Makarios was a pupil of Constandin (Căldăruşani Monastery), affiliated with the teacher Şărban, the protopsaltis of Walachia. In 1817 he learned the New Method...
WILLIAMSON, Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher. b. Sydney, 21 November 1931; d. Cambridge, 2 March 2003. Williamson was educated first at Barker College, Hornsby, and then, from the age of 11, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, under its director Sir Eugene Goossens. There he studied the piano, the French horn and composition. In 1953 he left Australia to live in London to study with Elizabeth Luytens and Erwin Stein, a pupil of Schönberg, supporting himself by playing as a church...
CHRYSAPHES, Manuel. fl. 1440–1463. He was the most impressive, prolific and distinguished Byzantine composer, singer, scribe and theoretician at the time of Constantinople's political decline. His output was exceptionally prolific and his chants were known and sung for centuries, not only in the Greek- but also in the Slavonic- and Romanian-speaking east. His contributions to the repertory of Byzantine liturgical music reveal him as an important figure in the development of the Eastern chant...
FRANCISCO, Manuel ('Manoling'). b. Quezon City, Philippines, 26 October 1965. Educated at the Ateneo de Manila High School, he grew up playing keyboard, and trained for a career in classical piano. After his uncle, his mother's first cousin, Benigno Aquino, was killed in 1983, Francisco became a student activist. At the age of 20, while in his second year in college, he entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Novaliches. Ordained in 1997, his first assignment was as a priest and school director of an...
FERSCHL, Maria. b. Melk, Austria, 18 March 1895; d. Saulgau, Baden-Württemberg, 10 April 1982. She was the daughter of a superintendent in the imperial and royal post office of Austria. She was educated at High School, and a Teachers' Training College in Vienna. She taught German, history and singing in a technical school. From 1925 onwards she was involved with the movement for the development of Catholic liturgy at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, writing Kreuzweg der Klosterneuburger...
MILLER, Mark Andrew. b. Burlington, Vermont, 7 January 1967. Mark Miller is a pianist, organist, singer, composer, choral conductor, church musician, educator, and active lay person in the United Methodist Church. He is currently an Associate Professor of Church Music, Director of the Chapel, and Composer-In-Residence at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey, and since 2006, a Lecturer in the Practice of Sacred Music in the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. Miller also...
LUTHER, Martin. b. Eisleben, Thuringia, probably 10 November 1483; d. Eisleben, 18 February 1546. Born the son of a miner who later became a mine-owner, he was educated at schools at Mansfeld, Magdeburg and Eisenach, before entering the University of Erfurt in 1501 (BA 1501, MA 1505). After a very brief period studying law, he decided to become an Augustinian friar, entering the cloister at Erfurt in July 1505. He entered the Order formally in 1506, becoming a priest in 1507 and saying his...
NYSTROM, Martin J. b. Seattle, Washington State, 1956. Following his graduation from Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma (BME, 1979) he became an evangelist and musician in New York with the 'Christ for the Nations' movement, and for Hosanna! Music, Mobile, Alabama, for whom he produced five Praise-Worship albums. He has composed over 250 songs, mostly one-stanza worship songs such as: 'Times of refreshing, here in your presence', 'Jesus I am thirsty' (with Don Harris), 'I will come and...
SIDEBOTHAM, Mary Ann. b. London, 31 July 1833; d. Ryde, Isle of Wight, 20 February 1913. According to Frost (1962) she was a talented musician. She lived with her brother Thomas, vicar of St Thomas on the Bourne, Farnham, Surrey, where she was church organist. She was a friend of the composer Henry Thomas Smart*, and it may have been at his suggestion that she became music editor of The Children's Hymn Book, for use in children's services, Sunday schools, and families (1881), edited by Frances...
Mary Frances Reza. b. Dawson, New Mexico; 17 January 1932.
Mary Frances Reza, sometimes referred to as the 'godmother' of Hispanic liturgical music in the United States, is a Catholic leader in Hispanic music and ministry. She is known for her bilingual psalm settings and congregational settings of the Mass, her advocacy for unpublished composers of Spanish-language USA congregational song, her workshops on Hispanic congregational song, and her leadership in worship and music for the...
HOY, Matilda T. (née Durham). b. Spartanburg County, South Carolina, 17 January 1815; d. Hoy's Crossing, Cobb County, Georgia, 30 July 1901. Miss Durham composed or arranged three tunes published by William Walker* in Southern Harmony and Musical Companion during 1835-1840. It appears likely that Matilda Durham knew Walker, who had moved to the Spartanburg area before 1830. Other residents of the area whose tunes appeared in Southern Harmony* were B. F. White* and the Rev. John Gill Landrum...
BEVAN, Maurice Guy Smalman. b. 10 March 1921; d. 20 June 2006. Bevan came from a line of Anglican clergymen. He was brought up in Shropshire, and educated at Shrewsbury School and Magdalen College, Oxford, which he left after a year to do military service in World War II. After the war he became a member of the St Paul's Cathedral choir as a bass baritone. A colleague in the choir, the counter-tenor Alfred Deller, founded the Deller Consort in 1950, of which Bevan became a valued member. The...
FRANCK, Melchior. b. Zittau, ca. 1579?; d. Coburg, 1 June 1639. Little is known of his early life, but he was a chorister at St Anna's Church, Augsburg. He was a pupil of Hans Leo Hassler*, moving with him to Nürnberg in 1601, where Franck published his chorale collection, Contrapuncti Compositi deutscher Psalmen und anderer geistlichen Kirchengesänge (1602). He was appointed Kapellmeister to Duke Johann Casimir of Saxe-Coburg, who encouraged his work until the Duke's death in 1633; his...
TESCHNER, Melchior. b. Fraustadt, Silesia (now Wschowa, Poland), 29 April 1584; d. Oberpritschen (now Przyczyna Górna, Poland), 1 December 1635. He was educated at Fraudstadt (he may have been taught by Valerius Herberger*, with whom he was later to be associated) and at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder, where he studied Philosophy, Theology and Music, the last taught by Bartholomäus Gesius*. In 1609 he was appointed Kantor at the Lutheran Church at Fraustadt known as the 'Kripplein...
GRAHAM, Melva Treffinger. b. Baltimore, Maryland, 16 January 1947. She began piano studies in Baltimore at the Peabody Preparatory School and organ studies with Helen Cullen. After two years at Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, she went on to church music studies at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule where she studied organ literature with Karl Hochreither and choral conducting with Martin Behrmann. Having completed the Mittlere Kirchenmusikalische Prüfung, Melva Graham returned to...
FLEMING, Michael (Paschal Marcon). b. Oxford, 8 April 1928; d. Croydon, 10 January 2006. He was the son and grandson of Church of England clergymen: his father, Guy Fleming, was curate of St Mary Magdalene, Oxford. During World War II he was evacuated to Cornwall, where he began organ lessons. After the war he was educated at St Edmund's School, Canterbury, followed by National Service. He went up to University College, Durham, in 1949 (BA, Music, 1952) where he also acted as organist of St...
HAYDN, (Johann) Michael. b. Rohrau, Lower Austria, 1737 (baptized 14 September); d. Salzburg, 10 August 1806. Born at Rohrau, like his elder brother (Franz) Joseph Haydn*, he was a chorister at St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Accounts of his life state that in 1757 he became Kapellmeister at Grosswardein (now Oradea, Roumania) to the bishop Count Firmian, though there is no evidence of his being there until 1760. There he composed 15 symphonies and 14 masses among other works. In 1763 he took...
GUIMONT, Michel. b. 1950. Composer and choral director, Michel Guimont studied psychology at Concordia University, received his Bachelor of Music and Masters in Music Composition at the University of Montreal and attended Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He has studied conducting with Canadian choral conductor Wayne Riddell in Montreal and attended numerous master classes with Frieder Bernius and Helmuth Rilling from Germany.
Director of music at Notre Dame Cathedral-Basilica...
DOUGALL, Neil. b. Greenock, near Glasgow, 9 December 1776; d. Greenock, 1 October 1862. He was the son of a joiner. His father was captured by the press gang and died on service abroad. When Neil left school at Greenock, he became a sailor in the merchant marine. In 1794 he lost part of his eyesight and the use of one arm in a gunnery accident while celebrating the victory over the French by Admiral Lord Howe on 'the glorious first of June'. Leaving the sea, he became a teacher of singing, and...
BALLANTA, Nicholas George Julius. b. Kissy, Sierra Leone, 14 March 1893; d. Sierra Leone(?), 1961(?). Ballanta was an ethnomusicologist, hymnist, and composer, known especially for his collection, Saint Helena Island Spirituals (1925), which included the first musical setting of 'Let us break bread together on our knees'*.
At the time of Ballanta's birth, Sierra Leone was a British colony, and independence from Great Britain was not won until 1961 — the year that Ballanta is thought to have...
KANTOUNIARĒS (NAUTOUNIARĒS), Nikēphoros. b. Chios, 1750-75; d. 1830s. Born on the island of Chios, Greece, Kantouniarēs undertook a musical apprenticeship in Constantinople under the patriarchal cantor (psaltēs) Iakobos Peloponnesios* (Protopsaltes) (d. 1800). He spoke Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and maybe Romanian, French and Italian.
Kantouniarēs was an important psaltēs, a composer of both ecclesiastical and secular music, a pedagogue, scribe, and exegete. As archdeacon of Antioch, Kanoutniarēs...
DECIUS, Nikolaus. b. Upper Franconia, Bavaria, ca. 1490?; d. Stettin, 21 March 1541. He was also known as Nikolaus a Curia, Nikolaus von Hofe, and Nikolaus Hovesch. He became 'Probst' ('Provost') of a monastery at Steterburg, near Wolfenbüttel in 1519. Convinced by the Reformers, he left the monastery in 1522, and became a schoolmaster at Braunschweig. He matriculated at the University of Wittenberg in 1523, and became a Lutheran preacher at Stettin in 1526, before being appointed preacher at...
SELNECKER, Nikolaus. b. probably at Hersbruck, near Nürnberg, 1530/1532; d. Leipzig, 24 May 1592. The date and place of his birth are uncertain (JJ and Stulken, 5 Dec 1532; KLEG, Hersbruck, 6 Dec 1530). He was at school at Nürnberg, and was organist of the Nürnberger Burgkapelle at the age of twelve. In 1549 he went to Wittenberg to study law, changing to theology under the influence of Philipp Melanchthon* (in whose house he lived) and graduating MA in 1554. After teaching at Wittenberg for...
RICHARDS, Noel. b. 1955. Richards is a Welsh singer-songwriter, guitarist and worship leader. His songs belong to the modern evangelical tradition and are characterised by direct language and strong rhythmic profiles. Among his best known songs are 'All heaven declares' and 'You laid aside your majesty.' The former, first published in 1987, has gained widespread popularity, and still features prominently in lists of most-used hymns and songs (http://www.ccli.co.uk/resources/top25.cfm, accessed...
COKE-JEPHCOTT, Norman. b. Coventry, Warwickshire, England, 17 March 1893; d. New York City, 14 March 1962. Coke-Jephcott was an organist, choral director, and composer. His main contribution to hymnic bibliography is The Saint Thomas Church Descant Book.
Norman Coke-Jephcott's parents were Edwin Coke Jephcott (1857-1927) and Annie May (Clarke) Jephcott (1855-1922). Edwin was a music teacher and organist in Coventry, where, in Holy Trinity Church, Norman was baptized on 20 April 1893. On 29...
NTSIKANA Gaga/Gaba. b. ca. 1780; d. 1821. He seems to be known in two forms, as 'Gaga' and 'Gaba'. The hymns of the prophet Ntsikana are the prototype of church music in a traditional Xhosa style. David Dargie* (1982) describes the prophet as
an attractively mysterious figure in Xhosa history. A Cirha, and son of a councillor of the famous chief Ngqika, he was the first Xhosa Christian. It was probably as a herd-boy that he heard the preaching of the first missionary among the Xhosa, Dr. J. T....
OLUDE, (A. T.) Olajida. b. 16 July 1908; d. c. 1986. A Nigerian Methodist minister, Olude was educated at Wesley College, Ibadan, and at the Mindola training school. He was awarded the Order of Niger and, from the University of Nigeria, the Mus.D. degree (Young, 808).
A.M. Jones describes Olude as 'profoundly upset by the way European-type hymns murdered his language' (Jones, 1976). Jones also notes that Olude built up a collection of at least 77 hymns whose melodies followed precisely the...
HOLDEN, Oliver. b. Shirley, Massachusetts, 18 September 1765; d. Charlestown, Massachusetts, 4 September 1844. Holden had just a few months of musical training in a singing school. He was apprenticed to a carpenter and practised that trade in the Boston area after settling in nearby Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the early 1780s. However, he was drawn to sacred music, which he had studied briefly in singing school (class lessons in musical rudiments and choral singing). Through individual study...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#Olof Axelsson'*
WESTENDORF, Omer Evers. b. Cincinnati, Ohio, 24 February1916; d. Cincinnati, 22 October 1997. Educated at the College of Music of Cincinnati (Certificate in Piano, 1947; BM, 1948, MM, 1950), Westendorf served for forty years as organist and choirmaster of St Bonaventure [Roman Catholic] Church in the South Fairmount neighborhood (1936-76). His tenure was interrupted by military service during the Second World War in Europe, where in the Netherlands he heard and obtained copies of a wide range...
LASSUS, Orlando de. b. Mons, the Netherlands, 1530 or 1532; d. Munich, 14 June 1594. Born at Mons (in present-day Belgium), Lassus was one of the most prolific and cosmopolitan of 16th-century composers, writing sacred and secular works in the predominant Latin, Italian, French, and German genres of his day. The earliest biographical details come from the Munich humanist Samuel Quickelberg's (1529–1567) entry on Lassus in a 1566 biographical directory. Quickelberg noted that aged about 12...
ALSTOTT, Owen. b. 1947. Alstott studied theology and philosophy at Mt Angel Seminary, and organ at Williamette University, both in Oregon. Following a long career in various roles, latterly including publisher, at Oregon Catholic Press (OCP), he relocated to the United Kingdom in 1992. He is married to fellow Roman Catholic author and composer Bernadette Farrell*. His Heritage Mass is a congregational setting widely used in the USA and printed in several major Catholic hymnals and missals. He...
SOSA, Pablo. b. in Chivilcoy, a province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 16 December 1933; d. Buenos Aires, 11 January 2020. Sosa was a composer, church musician and a local minister of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Argentina. He was emeritus professor of Liturgy and Hymnology at the Instituto Universitario ISEDET (Buenos Aires), and Choir Conducting at the National State Conservatory in Buenos Aires (1975-2005). He also established the musical group 'Música para Todos' in 1972, directing and...
PARK, Chai-hoon (Jai-hoon) 박재훈. b. Gimwha County, Gangwon Province, Korea (now North Korea), 14 November 1922; d. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 2 August 2021. Park was a composer and the foremost Korean hymnodist. His music-making and life influenced and shaped the development of Korean church music. He grew up in a Christian family, a rarity in that era, the youngest of the four sons from nine siblings. All four brothers became ministers later, a pledge that his mother had made to God. An...
L'ESTOCART, Paschal de. b. 1539 or 1540 ; d. after 1584. His birth year is approximately identified through the mention of his age on a portrait accompanying the edition of the Octonaires de la Vanité du Monde: 'PASCHAL DE L'ESTOCART . AAGE . DE . XLII.ANS' (at the age of 42 in 1581, according to the dedication, or 1582, according to the edition). He probably died after 1584 in which year he took part in a musical competition (a 'puy') at Évreux. Little is known about his youth, but he...
MAYBERRY, Pat. b. Montreal, Québec, b. 29 November 1950. At age twelve, Mayberry moved with her family from Montreal to England. She studied Sociology at Durham University (Hons, 1972), followed by graduate studies in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh.(1975). After returning to Canada in her late 20s, she worked as a Hospital Social Worker and Clinical Practice leader in Ottawa before retirement.
Pat has been songwriting since her teen years and plays both piano and guitar. After many...
RUPPEL, Paul Ernst. b. Esslingen am Neckar, 18 July 1913; d. Neukirchen-Vluyn, 27 November 2006. He came from a Baptist family, which moved to Kassel in 1924, where his father, an office manager, obtained a post with the Christian free-church publisher J.G. Oncken (with whom Ruppel junior later published Morgensternlieder in 1961). He studied music at the Württembergische Hochschule für Musik at Stuttgart, where he was taught choral singing by Richard Gölz, and orchestral work by Helmut...
INWOOD, Paul. b. Beckenham, Kent, 7 May 1947. Inwood was educated at Wimbledon College and the Royal Academy of Music. He was organist at Clifton [Roman Catholic] Cathedral (1974-87), director of music for the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, (1986-91) and has been diocesan director of liturgy and music for the diocese of Portsmouth since 2000. In the intervening years he worked in the USA as clinician and composer. Inwood was active as musician and editor at the St Thomas More Centre in North...
Huh, Paul Junggap. b. Seoul, South Korea, 20 March 1962. Paul Junggap Huh is a fourth- generation Presbyterian. His maternal grandfather was the first Christian in the family living in North Korea. Rev. Kyung-Chik Han was the family pastor at Second Shineujoo Presbyterian Church; the church members fled to Seoul and started Young Nak Presbyterian Church in 1945.
When he was 14, his family immigrated to United States and was baptized in 1976 by his uncle, Rev. Henry Inho Koh, who was the pastor...
HARLING, Per. b. Bromma, Sweden, 20 June 1948. Harling is a prolific song and hymn writer as well as a composer of liturgical music and hymn tunes. He has written several books on worship life, hymn texts and biographies, including Ett ögonblick i sänder - Lina Sandell och hennes sånger (Libris, 2003). He is particularly noted for his work connected with service life reform in the Swedish church, especially as secretary for the hymnal supplement for the Church of Sweden, Psalmer i...
DAVISON, Peter Wood Asterly. b. Montreal, 12 June 1936. After a year at McGill University, he went to Balliol College, Oxford (BA 1959, MA 1962), Cuddesdon Theological College, Oxford (1959-61), and subsequently to McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago (DMin 1989). Ordained in 1961, he returned to Canada, serving as rector in Anglican churches in Montreal and in Alymer, Quebec, and in Vancouver; before becoming rector at Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church in London, ON, where he also taught...
LUTKIN, Peter Christian. b. Thompsonville, Wisconsin, 27 March 1858; d. Chicago, Illinois, 27 December 1931. Peter Lutkin, composer, conductor, organist, and educator, received much of his early musical education by singing as a chorister in the choir at St Peter and St Paul's Episcopal Church in Chicago, where he began studying the organ at age 12. He was exposed to the new wave of Anglican music that prevailed in Episcopal churches in America. He spent the years from 1881 to 1884 studying in...
PETROS Bereketes. b. 1665?; d. 1725?. The name Bereketes derives from the Turkish word 'bereket', meaning 'abundance'. The story goes that when Bereketes was asked by his pupils if he had more heirmoi for them, he always answered that he had an abundance of them. Petros studied music in his home town of Constantinople and afterwards with Damianos of Vatopedi on Mount Athos. He was influenced by works by his contemporaries Chrysaphes the Younger*, Germanos of Neai Patrai* and Balasios*. He was...
PETROS Byzantios. b. Constantinople, mid-18th century; d. Iaşi, 1808. According to Chrysanthos of Madyta* Petros Byzantios came from Constantinople and studied music with Petros Lakedaimonos. The first reference to Petros Byzantios dates from 1771, when he was appointed second domestikos at the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. He was promoted to first domestikos (1778-89), then lampadarios (1789-1800) and finally protopsaltes (1800-05), from which post he was dismissed by patriarch...
PETROS Peloponnesios. b. ca. 1730; d. Constantinople, 1778. Petros Peloponnesios received his first instruction in music from monks in Smyrna. He went to Constantinople in 1764, where he became a pupil of Ioannes Trapezuntios*, then protopsaltes at the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia. After singing as a domestikos, Petros was promoted to lampadarios between 1769 and 1773. Petros Peloponnesios also taught at the patriarchal school of music alongside Daniel Protopsaltes* and Iakobos Peloponnesios*,...
BLYCKER, Philip Walter. b. Chicago, Illinois, 22 March 1939; d. Roseburg, Oregon, 11 June 2023. Philip Blycker (also known as Felipe Blycker J. in Spanish publications), was a missionary, hymn writer, composer, and hymnal editor. He was raised in the evangelical tradition as a Baptist. Taking piano and trumpet lessons during his youth, he received degrees from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina (B.M.E., 1960) and VanderCook College of Music in Chicago (MMus Ed., 1966). He...
PHILLIPS, Philip. b. Chautauqua County, New York, 13 August, 1834; d. Delaware, Ohio, 25 June 1895. Phillips, widely known as the 'Singing Pilgrim' was an evangelistic singer, song-writer, compiler of hymnals, and owner of a music company. According to the Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York (Philadelphia, 1891) the paternal grandfather of Philip Phillips, who was also named Philip Phillips, moved to Cassadaga, Chautauqua County, in 1816. His son, Sawyer...
NICOLAI, Philipp. b. Mengeringhausen, near Kassel, 10 August 1556, d. Hamburg, 26 October 1608. He was privately educated at Dortmund, Mühlhausen, and Korbach. From 1574 to 1579 he studied theology at Wittenberg and Erfurt. He completed his degree at Wittenberg in 1594 after studying with Aegidius Hunnius. He became pastor at Herdecke (Westphalia) in 1583, and later at Cologne (1586–7), Altwildungen (1588–96), Unna (1596–1601), and finally St. Katherinen, Hamburg.
Nicolai wrote numerous...
DAVANTÈS, Pierre (Latin pseudonym: 'Antesignanus'). b. Rabastens (southern France, near Tarbes), ca. 1525; d. Geneva, 31 August 1561. Very little is known about his life, although he possibly worked in Lyon. Early in 1559 he moved to Geneva and was accepted as a citizen (bourgeois). Expert in philology, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, he was not only an outstanding humanist but also a theorist and melody writer. Contributing to the Renaissance practice of ad fontes (the return to original sources), he...
PIDOUX, Pierre. b. Neuchâtel 4 March 1905; d. Geneva 16 July 2001. He was the son of a pastor, Louis S. Pidoux (1878-1953), and elder brother of the writer Edmond Pidoux. He was a Swiss Romand protestant pastor, who was an authority on the Genevan Psalter*. He was also a composer and organist.
He gained a degree in theology at the Free Church University of Lausanne (1932). where he lectured in 'Hymnology between 1646 and 1965'. He received the degree of PhD, honoris causa from the Lausanne...
CARMICHAEL, Ralph. b. Quincy, Illinois, 28 May 1927; d. Carmillo, California, 18 October 2021. A pioneer in the Contemporary Christian Music industry, Carmichael is a prolific composer of Christian songs, whose experiments in popular musical styles have garnered him recognition by some as the 'Father of Contemporary Christian Music'. Carmichael, fostered by musician parents, early on took violin, trumpet, and piano lessons. He attended Southern California Bible College (now Vanguard University,...
HUDSON, Ralph E. b. Napoleon, Ohio, 9 July 1843; d. Cleveland, Ohio, 14 June 1901. The family moved to Philadelphia when he was a child. During the Civil War he served in the Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was a nurse in Annapolis General Hospital, 1862-63. He was given an honourable discharge in 1864. A good musician, he taught music at Mount Vernon College, Alliance, Ohio, and later became a music publisher there. He was a licensed preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He published...
MARTINEZ, Raquel Mora (née Mora). b. Allende, Coahuila, Mexico, 17 January 1940. Composer, teacher, church musician, and hymnal editor. Her father, Josué Mora, was a Methodist minister, and her mother, Amada Mora, a homemaker, devoted all her time to church service. Endowed with a beautiful voice, 'Amadita', as Raquel was called, became the choir soloist: she would sing for all special occasions. She received her education from the Lydia Patterson Institute, El Paso, Texas (1957-1960),...
ALLISON, Richard. b. ?1560–70, d. ?before 1610. He was a servant of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick (d. 1589/90); little is known about his musical activities other than his publications.
He provided ten harmonizations of tunes in The Whole Book of Psalms: with their wonted tunes by Thomas East*, but his most significant contribution was his own collection, published in 1599 as The Psalmes of David in Meter . . . to be Sung and Plaide upon the Lute, Orpharyon, Cittern or Base Violl....
AVERY, Richard Kinsey. b. Visalis, California, 26 August 1934; d. Santa Fe, New Mexico, 15 March 2020. Avery attended the University of Redlands, California (BA 1956), Union Theological Seminary, New York City (MDiv 1960), and was an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church USA. His forty-year pastorate at First Presbyterian Church, Port Jervis, New York, included three decades shared with his life partner, Donald S. Marsh*, the church's choirmaster and director of arts.
Richard Avery was the...
CONNOLLY, Richard. b. Sydney, 10 November 1927; d. May 2022. He was educated at Lewisham Christian Brothers' School, then at Springwood (New South Wales) Marist Brothers' school. In 1946 he travelled to Rome and attended the Propaganda Fide College where he studied theology and music but withdrew in 1950 shortly before completing his ordination for the Roman Catholic priesthood. On his return to Australia he completed a BA at the University of Sydney (1956). In the same year he took up a...
GILLARD, Richard Arthur Moss. b. Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England, 22 May 1953. His family migrated to New Zealand in 1956 and he spent his early years in Auckland, later moving with his family to Northland, where he attended Whangarei Boys' High School, before returning to Auckland and completing his secondary education at Takapuna Grammar School. He trained to be a primary school teacher at the North Shore Teachers' College but left teaching early in 1975 and eventually took up work as a...
HILLERT, Richard Walter. b. Grafton, Wisconsin, 14 March 1923; d. Melrose Park, Illinois, 23 February 2010. Distinguished composer, editor, and teacher, Hillert attended Concordia Teachers' College, River Forest, Illinois [now Concordia University Chicago] (BSEd, 1951), Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (MM, 1955, DMus 1968, in composition), with additional study at the Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox, Massachusetts. He taught and directed music in Lutheran congregations and schools in...
LEACH, Richard. b. Bangor, Maine, 7 August 1953. Richard Leach graduated from Bowdoin College (BA, Religion, 1974) in Brunswick, Maine, and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1978). Leach was a pastor for United Church of Christ congregations from 1978-1999 and is now a layperson in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. He has worked in various capacities: as a business manager for a software company, as a poet, and as a visual artist specializing in paper collage. He currently resides...
SMITH, Robert Archibald. b. Reading, Berkshire, 16 November 1780; d. Edinburgh, 3 January 1829. He was the son of a Scottish silk weaver, who had moved south to find work; Robert himself became a weaver, working in Reading and then in Paisley when the family moved back to Scotland in 1800. In 1803 he felt confident enough in his musical abilities to give up weaving and become a teacher of singing, and in 1807 he was appointed precentor of Paisley Abbey, where he made the choir famous. He...
BROWN-BORTHWICK, Robert. b. Aberdeen, 18 May 1840; d. 17 March 1894 . He was educated at St Mary Hall, Oxford, then an independent Hall associated with the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, now a part of Oriel College. He took Holy Orders in 1865, serving curacies at Sudeley, Gloucestershire (1865-66), Evesham, Worcestershire (1866-68). He became Assistant Minister of Quebec Chapel (1868-69), Incumbent of the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, Grange in Borrowdale, near Keswick (1869-86), and...
Farlee, Robert Buckley. b. Santa Monica, California; 23 February 1950. Robert Farlee is the second of four children born to Lee (1917–1999) and Irene (née Berglund) (1921–2016) Farlee. He was raised in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod tradition at First Lutheran Church of Culver City and Palms (Los Angeles). His early education took place in Missouri Synod elementary and secondary schools. He graduated from Concordia Teachers' College (now Concordia University, Nebraska) in secondary music...
STEWART, Robert Prescott. b. Dublin, 16 December 1825; d. Dublin, 24 March 1894. Born at Pitt Street (now Balfe Street), Dublin, Stewart joined the choir school at Christ Church Cathedral in 1833. His musical career commenced in 1844 when at the age of 19 he succeeded John Robinson as organist at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and at the Chapel of Trinity College. Two years later, after the resignation of Joseph Robinson, Stewart assumed the conductorship of the University of Dublin Choral...
WILLIAMS, Robert. b. Mynydd Ithel, Llanfechell, Anglesey, 27 October 1782; d. Mynydd Ithel, 15 July 1818. He was blind from birth. He was a basket maker by trade, and a good musician. He is associated with the tune LLANFAIR, which is found in a manuscript book belonging to him, although it may have been a folk tune and he may not have been the composer of it. It had the name BETHEL, and was dated 14 July 1817. It was used by Vaughan Williams* for Charles Wesley*'s 'Hail the day that sees him...
TRUNK, Roger Ernest. b. Fortschwihr near Colmar, 1930; d. Strasbourg, 4 December 2013. Trunk was a Lutheran Pastor in Alsace, and a musician and hymnwriter, who studied music and theology at Strasbourg and Geneva. He was a minister in Strasbourg from 1985. Between 1984-2000 he was the Secretary of the European Conference for Protestant Church Music (EKEK). He took part in the making of the German Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG 1993) and the Franco-Swiss Protestant Hymnbook Alléluia (2005).
His...
ROMANOS the Melodist. fl. 6th century. Little is known about his life, and even the century in which he lived has long been hotly disputed. It is likely that he was born in Syria, in the city of Emesa, and that he was of Jewish origin. As a young man he served as deacon at the Church of the Resurrection in Beirut, before coming to Constantinople during the reign of Anastasius I (491-518), where he was attached to the Church of the Virgin in the Kyros quarter of the city.
After his death he was...
ARNATT, Ronald Kent. b. Wandsworth, London, 12 January 1930; d. Fredericksburg, Virginia, 23 August 2018. Arnatt was an organist, composer, conductor, and editor. He composed several hymn tunes and organ pieces based on hymn tunes.
His parents were Josiah Henry Arnatt (1891-1958) and Elizabeth Christina (Kent) Arnatt (1903-1986). As early as 1937, Ronald's name appeared in lists of prize winners for singing and playing piano. In 1938 he was featured as 'Boy Musical Prodigy'. 'The remarkable...
PRICHARD, Rowland Huw. b. Y Graienyn, Bala, Meirionnydd (Merioneth), 14 January 1811; d. Holywell, Flintshire, 25 January 1887 ('Prichard was the usage in publications of his own time. 'Pritchard' has been used in the 20th century). Prichard worked at Bala as a weaver for most of his life, but moved in 1880 to Holywell in Flintshire to a post with the Welsh Flannel Manufacturing Company, where he remained. He was one of the minor figures working for the improvement of Welsh hymn singing in the...
RUÍZ, Rubén Avila. b. Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico, 12 November 1945. The son of a Methodist minister (later a bishop), he was educated at the Instituto Mexicano Madero. During a period in Covington, Virginia, USA, ca. 1972, Ruíz wrote a hymn in Spanish for the choir of the United Methodist Church, 'Mantos y palmas' (literally 'Cloaks and Palms', based on the account in the Gospels of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The first stanza describes the scene; the second calls on the singers to follow...
HENDERSON, Ruth Louise Watson. b. Toronto, 23 Nov 1932. Internationally renowned composer, pianist and church musician, she was educated at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (1937-52) and the Mannes College of Music in New York (1952-4). In 2003 she was awarded an honorary Fellowship in the Royal Canadian College of Organists. From 1998 to 2013, Henderson served as organist and choir director at Kingsway Lambton United Church in Toronto. The elegance, melodic beauty and sensitivity to the text...
OCCOM, Samson. b. Mohegan Nation, near New London, Connecticut, 1723; d. Brothertown, New York, 14 July 1792. Occom was converted to Christianity in 1741 by the preaching and singing of James Davenport (1716-1757), a Connecticut 'New light' preacher. He attended Eleazar Wheelock's (1711-1779) school for four years and learned English, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Occom was ordained by the Suffolk Presbytery on Long Island, New York, in 1759, and served as a teacher and minister and in a variety of...
CHÁVEZ-MELO, Skinner. b. Mexico City, 17 November 1944; d. New York City 25 January 1992. Chávez-Melo attended Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts (BM, 1968), Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York (MSM, 1971) [later serving there as choirmaster] with additional study at the Juilliard School of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music. From 1972-1985 he held faculty and administrative positions at the Manhattan School of Music and The Mannes College of Music in New...
OSBORNE, Stanley Llewellyn. b. Clarke Township on a farm near Bowmanville, close to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 6 January 1907; d. Oshawa, Ontario, 7 December 2000. He graduated (BA 1929, BD 1932) from Victoria University, Toronto. After ordination in The United Church of Canada in 1932, he served as minister in Alberta at Paradise Valley, and in Ontario at Core Hill, Hay Bay, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto, and First United Church in Port Credit. In 1948, he became principal of Ontario...
MOLEFE, Stephen Cuthbert. b.1917; d.1987. Molefe was born in the Transkei area of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, of Sotho descent. He worked with David Dargie* in composition workshops for the Lumko Institute throughout southern Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, and was a prolific musician.
Molefe served as a choirmaster at the Catholic Church in Vosloorus. He was not only a skilled musician (writing music in Tonic Sol-fa* rather than staff notation) but also fluent in a variety of South...
See 'Tanzanian hymnody#Stephen Mbunga'*
DAUERMANN, Stuart. b. Brooklyn, New York, 1944. Stuart Dauermann is a Messianic Jewish Rabbi. His education includes BA and MM degrees in music theory and music education, and MA and PhD degrees in Intercultural Studies. He has published several books on interreligious relations between Jews and Christians. He is Director of Interfaithfulness, an organisation dedicated to advancing interreligious relationships between Jews and Christians, and serves as Rabbi of Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue,...
TOWNEND, Stuart. b. Edinburgh, 1 June 1963. He was educated at Sowerby Bridge High School, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, then at the University of Sussex, Brighton (1981-1985), where he gained an honours degree in American Studies (Literature). Remaining in Brighton, after a year of training in evangelism at the Clarendon Church (now Church of Christ the King), he joined the staff at Kingsway Music, Eastbourne, initially as an in-house arranger and editor, and later as Head of Music, editing...
See 'Edward Stephen (Jones)'*
KARYKES, Theophanes. ca. second half 16th century. Karykes is said to be one of the most important Byzantine composers of the late 16th century, whose work already shows the stylistic influence of the new florid style. Theophanes Karykes is mentioned in the diary of the German pastor Stephan Gerlach: on a visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in October 1577, he made the acquaintance of a 'protopsaltes […] called Kariteus of Athens'. Karykes was a protopsaltes until 1578 and became ecumenical...
WILLIAMS, Thomas John. b. Ynysmeudwy, Pontardawe, Glamorgan, 25 April 1869; d. Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, 24 April 1944. He worked as an insurance man, and was organist of chapels in Pontardawe and Llanelli. He wrote hymn tunes and anthems. His best known hymn tune is EBENEZER, written in 1896 and named after Ebenezer Chapel, Rhos, Pontardawe. It was published in Yr Athraw ('The Teacher') in 1897, and used in Williams's anthem Goleu yn y Glyn ('Light in the valley') in 1899. It appeared in the...
PHILLIPS, Thomas King Ekundayo, b. Ondo State, Nigeria, 8 March 1884; d. Lagos, Nigeria, 10 July 1969. Born into the family of Bishop Charles Samuel Phillips of the Anglican Communion, he was the father of five children. Phillips graduated from Trinity College of Music, London (1914), majoring in organ and violin. He was the second Nigerian to receive a bachelor's degree in music from this institution. Phillips was appointed in 1914 to the position of Organist and Master of the Music at the...
GRIFFITHS, Thomas Vernon. b. West Kirby, Cheshire, England, 22 June 1894; d. 23 November 1985. He was the son of an Anglican priest, educated at Norwich Grammar School. After war service in Europe, he won an organ scholarship to the University of Cambridge. There he gained a BA in History (1921) and a MusB (1922). He converted to Catholicism; and in 1926 he emigrated to New Zealand to take up a post as lecturer in music at Christchurch Teachers' Training College with responsibility for the...
WALKER, Thomas. b. 1764; d. 5 July 1827. An alto singer, teacher, and composer active in London, he began to play an important part in Baptist hymnody as musical adviser to John Rippon*, minister of the prominent Baptist church at Carter Lane in the City of London. From about 1793 he was Rippon's chief musical adviser, and appears to have been the musical editor of successive editions of Rippon's Selection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes from about 1792 to 1825. According to Manley, this tunebook...
FETTKE, Thomas Eugene, b. Bronx, New York, 24 February 1941. Composer, arranger, and music producer, Fettke attended Oakland City College (AA [Associate of Arts] 1962) California State University at Hayward (BA 1966). He was a secondary school teacher for more than three decades, teaching voice and directing both public and private school ensembles, including Redwood Christian School system (1978-84), a K-12 interdenominational school system located in the San Francisco East Bay area, where he...
VICTORIA, Tomás Luis de. b. Ávila, Spain, ca. 1548; d. Madrid, 27 August 1611. Victoria was a choirboy at Ávila Cathedral. He studied from about 1565 at the Collegio Germanico in Rome, and taught there from 1571. In 1575 he was ordained to the priesthood. His clerical activities in Rome included a chaplain's position at S. Gerolamo della Carità (from probably 1582 until 1585) and charitable work for the Archconfraternity of the Resurrection, for which he also occasionally provided music. As a...
COOMES, Tommy. b. Long Beach, California, 19 May 1946. Singer/songwriter, producer, worship leader and music executive, Coomes played a key role in 'Jesus Music' in the 1960s and 1970s and development of worship music repertoire for the church in the late 20th century. Raised in Lakewood, California, he played trumpet and guitar in high school, studied music at California State University, Long Beach, and enlisted in the US Army. A year after leaving the army in 1969 he met a nucleus of hippie...
McKAY, V. Michael. b. Alexandria, Louisiana, 8 May 1952. V. Michael McKay grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana, where his grandfather was a Baptist preacher. His grandmother sang hymns to him at home and while riding in the car, embedding in him a love for the people's song at an early age. It was out of this experience that he felt a calling to make composition and music making as his life's work (Defender, 2018, n.p.). He named his publishing company, Schaff Music Publishing, after his...
NIX, Verolga. b. Cleveland, Ohio, 6 April 1933; d. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 9 December 2014. The daughter of Rev. Andrew W. Nix Sr. and Ida A. Nix, Verolga Nix was a noted pianist, choral conductor, composer, arranger of gospel songs and African American spirituals*, and co-editor of the influential Songs of Zion (Nashville, 1981) with Judge Jefferson Cleveland*.
Her musical education began with voice and piano study at age six. She became organist at Mount Zion Baptist Church (Holmesburg,...
BEECHING, Victoria Louise (Vicky). b. 19 July 1979. Vicky Beeching is a British singer-songwriter, broadcaster and researcher. She was educated at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School, Canterbury, and the University of Oxford.
She has recorded three albums, Yesterday, Today & Forever (2005), Painting the Invisible (2007), and Eternity Invades (2010). The first part of her career was largely spent in the USA, where she achieved considerable prominence as a recording artist and performed...
FORBIS, Wesley Lee. b. Chickasha, Oklahoma 31 October 1930; d. Goodlettsville, Tennessee, 14 January 2011. Forbis attended the University of Tulsa (BMusEd, 1952; MA in religion, 1955; thesis: 'Music in the Old Testament: A Survey,' 1959); Baylor University, Waco, Texas (MA, 1966; thesis: 'Christian Hymnody: A survey'); and Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University), Nashville, Tennessee (PhD, 1968; dissertation, 'The Galin-Paris-Cheve Method of Rhythmic Instruction: A History'. Forbis...
HELD, Wilbur Caldwell. b. Des Plaines, Illinois, 20 August 1914; d. Claremont, California, 24 March 2015. Held was a composer, organist, and professor of organ and choral music at Ohio State University. He composed IN BETHLEHEM, several other hymn tunes, and many organ arrangements of hymn tunes.
Wilbur Held's parents were Walter Wilbur Held (1884–1981) and Amy Caldwell (née Greene) Held (1886–1937). Walter owned a heating business in Des Plaines, where he served on the school board for 13...
JAMES, William Garnett. b. Ballarat, Victoria, 28 August 1895; d. Sydney, 10 March 1977. James studied music at the University of Melbourne's Conservatorium. In 1914 he went to London to pursue his studies and from 1915 gave a number of performances as a concert pianist under Sir Henry Wood. He then toured the United Kingdom as an accompanist for artists such as Tetrazini, Fritz Kreisler, and the Australian singer Peter Dawson. He returned to Australia in 1915, and in 1935 became the first...
WALTER, William Henry. b. Newark, New Jersey, 1 July 1825; d. New York, 19 April 1893. Walter taught music in public schools, and was organist associated with Trinity Church, Manhattan, and its chapels. He composed at least 43 hymn tunes, most published in Charles Lewis Hutchins*'s The Church Hymnal, Revised and Enlarged (Boston, 1908). Among his tunes, FESTAL SONG (1872) is still widely sung to a variety of texts.
His parents were James Hahn Walter (nda) and Mary (née Cheetham) Walter...
DOANE, William Howard. b. Preston, New London County, Connecticut, 3 February 1832; d. South Orange, New Jersey, 24 December 1915. Doane was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, composer, and hymnbook compiler best known for his collaborations with Robert Lowry* on numerous Sunday School collections and his frequent partnering with Fanny Crosby* in providing over 1,000 hymn tunes for her Gospel texts. Approximately 30 of his over 2,200 tunes remain in common use.
Born to Joseph...
MATHIAS, William James. b. Whitland, Pembrokeshire, 1 November 1934; d. Anglesey, 29 July 1992. Mathias studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and at the Royal Academy of Music with Sir Lennox Berkeley. He established himself as one of the most distinctive and accessible composers of his generation and became particularly celebrated for his church and choral music.
In 1981 he composed an anthem 'Let the People Praise Thee, O God' (Psalm 67) — for the Wedding in St. Paul's...
ROWLANDS, William Penfro. b. Dan-y-coed, Cwmderi, Pembrokeshire, 19 April 1860; d. Swansea, 22 October 1937. Born William Rowlands, he adopted the middle name 'Penfro' in honour of his native county. He showed promise as a musician when only a boy, and at 17 became precentor of the Calvinistic Methodist chapel at Gwastad. Following his appointment as a teacher at Pentre-poeth boys' school in 1881 he moved to Morriston, near Swansea, where he served as precentor of Bethania Calvinistic Methodist...
FULLERTON, William Young. b. Belfast, 8 March 1857; d. Bedford Park, Middlesex, 17 August 1932. Born into a Presbyterian family, he was greatly affected as a young man by hearing Charles Haddon Spurgeon* preach. He enrolled at Spurgeon's College to train for the Baptist ministry, and served in various churches, notably Melbourne Hall, Leicester, where in 1894 he succeeded the outstanding F.B. Meyer (1847-1929). Fullerton became Home Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1912/13 to...