GRADUATE COURSE

MUSIC IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP

WRSP 70970

June 10-21, 2024, Mornings, Online

3 hours graduate credit or for audit

Course Description:

A foundational course for clergy and musicians about the church’s music, covering theological underpinnings in various traditions, various worship streams and how music relates to them, congregational song, choral song, music leadership, language, and staff relationships.

Presented in cooperation with Brite Divinity School.  Featuring guest lecturers Drs. Wilma Ann Bailey, Zebulon Highben, Ellen Johnston, Michael Joncas, Anthony Ruff, Don Saliers, Paul Westermeyer, with Dr. Charlotte Kroeker, convening professor.

Online, mornings of June 10-21, 2024.  Maximum enrollment of 25.

Click here for prospectus.

Click here for the course outline.

Click here for course materials (password protected).

Application Information:

Applications for credit should be submitted to Brite Divinity School.
Brite is offering a $1,500 scholarship to students taking for credit - a 50% discount.

Applications for auditors should be submitted to Church Music Institute. Cost for auditors is $375.

Click here for further application information and to apply.

**Deadline for applications is May 1, 2024.**

Faculty Information:

Dr. Wilma Ann Bailey is the Minnie Vautrin Professor of Christian Witness and Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic Scripture, Emerita, at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. She grew up in New York City and attended public schools before entering Hunter College in the Bronx and graduating from Herbert H. Lehman College (same school, different name). She earned an MDiv from Goshen Biblical Seminary, now called Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS); she received an MA and PhD in religion, with a focus on Hebrew Bible and a minor in anthropology, from Vanderbilt University.

Bailey’s scholarly works and popular publications have usually focused on issues of peace and justice, women, and ecology. She has traveled widely in eastern and western Europe; Asia; Africa; North, Central, and South America; and the Caribbean. Her introduction to numerous cultures and languages has enriched her life immeasurably.

She currently lives in Indianapolis, where she attends Shalom Mennonite Church.

 

A conductor, composer, and scholar of sacred music, Dr. Zebulon M. Highben serves as Director of Chapel Music at Duke University Chapel and as Associate Professor of the Practice of Church Music at Duke Divinity School. He conducts the Duke Chapel Choir, edits the Music from Duke Chapel choral series, teaches courses in church music and hymnody, and oversees the Chapel’s extensive music program, which connects students, community members, staff singers, instrumentalists, and professional colleagues in myriad worship services and concerts.

As a composer, Zebulon is frequently commissioned by churches, schools, and arts organizations. More than sixty of his choral compositions, hymns, and liturgical pieces are published by eight major domestic publishing houses (Augsburg Fortress, Boosey & Hawkes, Colla Voce, E.C. Schirmer, GIA, Kjos, MorningStar, Santa Barbara) and by Gehrmans Musikförlag in Sweden. Compositional honors include awards from the American Composers Forum, The American Prize, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, ASCAP, and the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

Ellen Johnston is recently retired as the Director of the Music, Liturgy, and the Arts at Virginia Theological Seminary, a program which offers continuing education by means of conferences and symposia, provides a consultancy service for parishes and dioceses, and offers distance learning opportunities. She is Vice-Chair of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for the Episcopal Church, and former Director of Music at the Church of the Holy Comforter in Richmond, Virginia. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Centenary College and M.M. from Southern Methodist University.

 

Ordained in 1980 as a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN, Fr. (Jan) Michael Joncas holds degrees in English from the (then) College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and in liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN and the Pontificio Istituto Liturgico of the Ateneo S. Anselmo in Rome. He has served as a parochial vicar, a campus minister, and a parochial administrator (pastor). He is the author of six books and more than two hundred fifty articles and reviews in journals such as Worship, Ecclesia Orans, and Questions Liturgiques. He has composed and arranged more than 300 pieces of liturgical music. He recently retired as Artist in Residence and Research Fellow in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB is a monk of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN. He teaches liturgy and liturgical music in the School of Theology there, with emphases on

Vatican II renewal, ecumenical hymnody, and Gregorian chant. He chaired the international committee that wrote the English chant for the 2011 Roman Missal. He has served on the board of the Hymn Society and the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and was on the committee that drafted the document Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is founding director of the National Catholic Youth Choir summer camp and blogs at Pray Tell.

 

Dr. Don E. Saliers returned to Candler in 2014 as Theologian-in-Residence after retiring in 2007 as the William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship. For many years he directed the Master of Sacred Music program at Emory, and was an organist and choirmaster at Cannon Chapel for 35 years. Before joining the Candler faculty in 1974, Saliers taught at Yale Divinity School, and has taught in summer programs at Notre Dame, Boston College, Vancouver School of Theology, St. John’s University, and Boston University School of Theology.
An accomplished musician, theologian and scholar of liturgics, Saliers is the author of 15 books on the relationship between theology and worship practices, as well as more than 150 articles, essays, chapters in books and book reviews. He co-authored A Song to Sing, a Life to Live with his daughter Emily Saliers, a member of the Indigo Girls.

Dr. Paul Westermeyer is Emeritus Professor of Church Music and Cantor at Luther Seminary, where he directed the Master of Sacred Music degree program with St. Olaf College. He has been the President of the Hymn Society, Editor of The Hymn, and Dean of the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. His life’s work has been devoted to church music and the role of the church musician. His writing includes Te Deum: The Church and Music, The Church Musician, and the Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

 

Dr. Charlotte Kroeker came to Dallas from the University of Notre Dame where she held a faculty research position in church music.  She is the author of The Sounds of Our Offerings: Achieving Excellence in Church Music, Alban Press, 2011, is editor of Music in Christian Worship, Liturgical Press, 2005, and has published numerous articles on church music.

Dr. Kroeker is trained as a performing pianist and pedagogue, spending most of her career as a college professor and administrator.  Born and raised in the General Conference Mennonite Church, she has served as organist and/or choir director in Presbyterian, Episcopal, Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist congregations, concurrent with her academic appointments.  Dr. Kroeker has spent the last 15 years studying foundational issues for effective music in worship.  In this process, she has received grants from the Lilly Endowment, Louisville Institute, Wabash Center, Indiana Arts Commission, the University of Notre Dame, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and private donors to fund research and to convene conferences, workshops, and focus groups of university/seminary faculty, church musicians, pastors and laypersons.  Dr. Kroeker oversees program development and strategic planning for CMI.