Valparaiso University

Church Music Seminar Organized in 1944 under the slogan ‘the musical heritage of the church’, the main objective of the Valparaiso University Church Music Seminar was ‘to propagate a type of music that would have as its basis Christian faith and spiritual life’ (brochure copy). Professor Theodore Hoelty-Nickel (1894–1986) founded the Seminar and directed it for over twenty-five years. The Church Music Seminar brought together organists, conductors, singers, pastors, and interested lay people from around the United States and often from Europe for a concentrated time of musical and theological study and conversation. The Seminar focused on improving standards in church music by assisting...