A music professor, composer and minister of music has been named the inaugural holder of the Lev H. Prichard III Chair in the Study of Black Worship at Baylor University.
Stephen Newby will continue and expand the work begun by Bob Darden through the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program. Darden, a journalism professor, recently retired.
Newby will work from the university’s School of Music, connecting the multidisciplinary facets of a project that touches on theology, music, worship and American history. The Black Gospel Music Preservation Program is housed within the university libraries.
The program began out of Darden’s interest in recordings of Black Gospel music and then got a boost when Lev and Ella Prichard became donors to the work shortly before Lev’s death.
“This is a dream job, and words cannot express my gratitude to the Prichard family for establishing this position,” Newby said. “Gospel music and Black worship is an integral part of the American fabric. The opportunity to serve and collaborate with others to preserve and share this music is amazing. I think this can provide a foundation to help us present the incredible treasure of this music that we have before us.”
Newby currently works at Seattle Pacific University as a professor of music, director of composition and director of the Center for Worship. He previously served at the University of Michigan and Trevecca Nazarene University.
Simultaneously, Newby works as a composer, fusing elements of Black gospel and jazz in his works for churches, symphony halls and musical theater.
Newby previously served as a minister of music at Antioch Bible Church in Seattle and currently serves as minister of worship at Peachtree Church in Atlanta. His father was a Missionary Baptist preacher and his mother a minister of music.
Newby earned a bachelor of arts degree in music education from Madonna University in Michigan, a master of music degree in jazz composition and arranging from the University of Massachusetts and a doctor of musical arts degree in composition from the University of Michigan School of Music. He later added a master of arts degree in theology from Seattle Pacific.
Newby currently is collaborating with Darden on a biography of the late Andraé Crouch.
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