Dale Wood was a renowned composer, organist, and choral director best known for his church music compositions. He was born on February 13, 1934, in Glendale, California, and died April 13, 2003. Wood began writing compositions at a young age. When he was 13 years old, he won a national hymn-writing contest for the American Lutheran Church. [1] [2]
Sir John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
Anglican church music is music that is written for Christian worship in Anglican religious services, forming part of the liturgy. It mostly consists of pieces written to be sung by a church choir, which may sing a cappella or accompanied by an organ.
"Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" is a Christian hymn associated with Easter. Most of the stanzas were written by Charles Wesley, and the hymn appeared under the title "Hymn for Easter Day" in Hymns and Sacred Poems by Charles and John Wesley in 1739. The hymn eventually became well known for the "Alleluia" sung as a melisma after each line, which was added by an unknown author, probably to fit the commonly used hymn tune, "Easter Hymn". It remains a traditional processional hymn on Easter Sunday.
Paul Otto Manz, was an American composer for choir and organ. His most famous choral work is the Advent motet "E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come", which has been performed at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, though its broadcast by the neighbouring Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, in its Advent Carol Service precipitated its popularity.
John Allen Ferguson is an American organist, teacher, and composer.
Francis Alan Jackson was a British organist and composer who served as Director of Music at York Minster for 36 years, from 1946 to 1982.
René Clausen is an American composer, conductor emeritus of The Concordia Choir, and professor of music at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. His works are widely performed by high school and church choirs while his more technically demanding pieces have been performed and recorded by college and professional choirs. Among his many accolades, his recent recording, "Life & Breath: Choral Works by René Clausen," received three Grammy Awards at the 55th Grammy Awards in 2013.
Theodore Norbert Marier was a church musician, educator, arranger and scholar of Gregorian Chant. He founded St. Paul's Choir School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, and served as the second president of the Church Music Association of America.
K. (Kayron) Lee Scott is an internationally known teacher, musician, conductor, and composer of sacred music, choral music, and hymns, residing in Birmingham, Alabama.
Daniel Ernest Forrest Jr. is an American composer, pianist, educator, and music editor.
Richard (Irven) Purvis was an American organist, composer, conductor and teacher. He was best known for his expressive recordings of the organ classics and his own lighter compositions for the instrument.
Carl Flentge Schalk was a noted Lutheran composer, author, and lecturer. Between 1965 and 2004 he taught church music at Concordia University Chicago. During this time he guided the development of the university's Master of Church Music degree, which has since graduated more than 140 students. Schalk was a member of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, which produced the Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978. He was also the editor of the journal Church Music from 1966 to 1980. Additionally, he was a published composer for Choristers Guild, a member of the Music Advisory Committee of Concordia Publishing House and of the board of directors of Lutheran Music Program, the parent organization of the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Festival.
Richard Hillert (1923-2010) was a noted Lutheran composer. He was Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus at Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Ill. He was best known for his work as a composer and teacher of composition. Among his most frequently performed liturgical works for congregation is Worthy Is Christ, with its antiphon, “This is the Feast of Victory” which was written as an alternate Song of Praise for inclusion in Setting One of the Holy Communion in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982). "This is the Feast" is now widely published in more than 20 recent worship books of many denominations, most recently in Lutheran Service Book (2006) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006). Other major liturgical works include a setting of Evening Prayer (1984) and a Eucharistic Festival Liturgy (1983), which was first performed at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. He wrote liturgical pieces and hymns and served as music editor for Worship Supplement (1969) and Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). His compositions and publications include an array of pieces of liturgical music for congregation, choral motets, hymns and hymn anthems, psalm settings and organ works, concertatos, and cantatas, including settings of The Christmas Story According to Saint Luke and The Passion According to Saint John. He edited eleven volumes of the Concordia Hymn Prelude Series.
Walter Kendall Stanton was an English organist, educationalist, and composer of sacred music.
Roberta Bitgood (Wiersma) (15 January 1908 – 15 April 2007) was an American organist, choir director, and composer. She was a pioneer of 20th-century American church music, and the first woman to serve as national president of the American Guild of Organists.
André Jerome Thomas is an American composer and conductor. He served as a professor of music at the College of Music at Florida State University and the artistic director for the Tallahassee Community Chorus. In addition to his conducting and composition credits, Thomas is a published author, having written Way Over in Beulah Lan': Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual, and numerous journal articles.
Osbert Parsley was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a "singing man" in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch.
Nancy Elizabeth Miller Raabe is an American clergy member, author, and composer. She is the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Hatfield, Pennsylvania.
Daniel Troen Moe was an American choral conductor, composer, and pedagogue. He was director of choral organizations for the University of Iowa, professor of choral conducting at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and founding music director of Key Chorale in Sarasota, Florida. He was a published composer and author. He was once hailed by The New Yorker music critic Andrew Porter as "that dean of choral conductors."
Sharon Elery Rogers was an American composer, music educator, and organist who published over 550 compositions of sacred music.