BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — A group dedicated to hymnology and hymnody in North America has honored three Baptist musicians for their lifetime achievements in the field of church music.
The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada named David Music, Paul Richardson and Paul Powell as fellows of the organization during the group’s annual meeting, which concluded in late July in Birmingham, Ala.
Music is a professor of church music at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and the author or co-author of numerous books, journal articles and academic papers on hymns and church music. They include a foundational history of hymnody among Baptists in the United States that Music co-wrote with fellow honoree Richardson. A graduate of California Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he served as a music professor at each of his alma maters before joining the Baylor faculty in 2002. Most recently, he and Richardson both served on the editorial board of the newly published Celebrating Grace Hymnal.
Richardson is a professor of music at Samford University in Birmingham. He has authored several works in addition to his work with Music. Prior to his work on the Celebrating Grace Hymnal, Richardson contributed to several other hymnals and hymnal companion works, including The Baptist Hymnal (1992) and The New Century Hymnal Companion (1998). He is a graduate of Mars Hill College in North Carolina and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has done postgraduate work at the Eastman School of Music and Colgate Rochester Divinity School.
Powell is the author of Wherever He Leads I’ll Go, which the Hymn Society called “a groundbreaking study” of the life and work of famed Baptist hymn author B.B. McKinney. He also spent a decade making the Dictionary of North American Hymnology available online at Hymnary.org. The feat required digitizing information that had been stored in computer-punch-card format. Powell holds degrees from Louisiana College, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisiana State University and Drew University.
The Richmond, Va.-based Hymn Society describes itself as “an organization of member pastors, musicians, scholars, poets, composers and other hymn lovers” that “advocates song as an integral component of worship, fosters the writing and singing of new texts and tunes, and promotes learning about the origins of the words and music sung as hymns.”