Buryl Red › Texts

Born in Little Rock, Ark., Red earned his bachelor's degree in church music from Baylor University in 1957. While a student, he was involved in the Baylor Religious Hour Choir and the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia national professional music fraternity. He also received a degree from Yale University in 1961 and as of 2007 resided in New York City.

Red was described by The Washington Post as "uncommonly creative," with his musical works as a composer, conductor, producer and arranger heard in such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, "Saturday Night Live" and thousands of schools, churches and theaters around the world. He had more than 1,600 published compositions and arrangements, produced more than 2,500 recordings and supervised, composed or arranged the music for several hundred shows, documentaries and musical specials for network and cable television.

Several of Red's choral works including "Celebrate Life" and the first performing edition of Pergolesi's Magnificat are considered landmarks in their fields. He served as executive record producer for some of the most widely used music textbooks in the United States, including the recent Silver Burdett Making Music series and was honored with the inclusion of his well-known song, "In Remembrance," in The African-American Heritage Hymnal published in 2001.

He was also honored with many civic and professional awards and degrees.

Red served as musical director of The CenturyMen, an auditioned men's chorus of professional musicians who are directors of music in Baptist churches across America and from around the world.

He died April 1, 2013.