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Martin Shaw

1875 - 1958 Person Name: Martin Shaw, 1875-1958 Topics: Rescue Harmonizer of "OLD 124TH" in The Book of Praise Martin F. Shaw was educated at the Royal College of Music in London and was organist and choirmaster at St. Mary's, Primrose Hill (1908-1920), St. Martin's in the Fields (1920-1924), and the Eccleston Guild House (1924-1935). From 1935 to 1945 he served as music director for the diocese of Chelmsford. He established the Purcell Operatic Society and was a founder of the Plainsong and Medieval Society and what later became the Royal Society of Church Music. Author of The Principles of English Church Music Composition (1921), Shaw was a notable reformer of English church music. He worked with Percy Dearmer (his rector at St. Mary's in Primrose Hill); Ralph Vaughan Williams, and his brother Geoffrey Shaw in publishing hymnals such as Songs of Praise (1925, 1931) and the Oxford Book of Carols (1928). A leader in the revival of English opera and folk music scholarship, Shaw composed some one hundred songs as well as anthems and service music; some of his best hymn tunes were published in his Additional Tunes in Use at St. Mary's (1915). Bert Polman

Gracia Grindal

b. 1943 Topics: Rescue Author of "With All My Heart I Thank You" in Christian Worship Gracia Grindal (b. Powers Lake, ND, 1943). Grindal was educated at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minnesota; the University of Arkansas; and Luther-Northwestern Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, where she has served since 1984 as a professor of pastoral theology and communications. From 1968 to 1984 she was a professor of English and poet-in-residence at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. Included in her publications are Sketches Against the Dark (1981), Scandinavian Folksongs (1983), Lessons in Hymnwriting (1986, 1991), We Are One in Christ: Hymns, Paraphrases, and Translations (1996), Good News of Great Joy: Advent Devotions for the Home (1994 with Karen E. Hong), Lina Sandell, the Story of Her Hymns (2001 with John Jansen), and A Revelry of Harvest: New and Selected Poems (2002). She was instrumental in producing the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and The United Methodist Hymnal (1989). Bert Polman

Michael Morgan

b. 1948 Topics: Rescue Author (verses) of "All with Joyful Exultation" in Christian Worship Michael Morgan (b. 1948) is a church musician, Psalm scholar, and collector of English Bibles and Psalters from Atlanta, Georgia. After almost 40 years, he now serves as Organist Emeritus for Atlanta’s historic Central Presbyterian Church, and as Seminary Musician at Columbia Theological Seminary. He holds degrees from Florida State University and Atlanta University, and did post-graduate study with composer Richard Purvis in San Francisco. He has played recitals, worship services, and master classes across the U. S., and in England, France, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. He is author of the Psalter for Christian Worship (1999; rev. 2010), and a regular contributor in the field of psalmody (most recently to the Reformed collections Psalms for All Seasons and Lift Up Your Hearts, and the new Presbyterian hymnal, Glory to God). Michael Morgan

Lowell Mason

1792 - 1872 Topics: Rescue Word Composer of "LABAN" in The Hymnal Dr. Lowell Mason (the degree was conferred by the University of New York) is justly called the father of American church music; and by his labors were founded the germinating principles of national musical intelligence and knowledge, which afforded a soil upon which all higher musical culture has been founded. To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in the schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of the respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, has derived advantage from the work of this great man. Lowell Mason was born in Medfield, Mass., January 8, 1792. From childhood he had manifested an intense love for music, and had devoted all his spare time and effort to improving himself according to such opportunities as were available to him. At the age of twenty he found himself filling a clerkship in a banking house in Savannah, Ga. Here he lost no opportunity of gratifying his passion for musical advancement, and was fortunate to meet for the first time a thoroughly qualified instructor, in the person of F. L. Abel. Applying his spare hours assiduously to the cultivation of the pursuit to which his passion inclined him, he soon acquired a proficiency that enabled him to enter the field of original composition, and his first work of this kind was embodied in the compilation of a collection of church music, which contained many of his own compositions. The manuscript was offered unavailingly to publishers in Philadelphia and in Boston. Fortunately for our musical advancement it finally secured the attention of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, and by its committee was submitted to Dr. G. K. Jackson, the severest critic in Boston. Dr. Jackson approved most heartily of the work, and added a few of his own compositions to it. Thus enlarged, it was finally published in 1822 as The Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music. Mason's name was omitted from the publication at his own request, which he thus explains, "I was then a bank officer in Savannah, and did not wish to be known as a musical man, as I had not the least thought of ever making music a profession." President Winchester, of the Handel and Haydn Society, sold the copyright for the young man. Mr. Mason went back to Savannah with probably $500 in his pocket as the preliminary result of his Boston visit. The book soon sprang into universal popularity, being at once adopted by the singing schools of New England, and through this means entering into the church choirs, to whom it opened up a higher field of harmonic beauty. Its career of success ran through some seventeen editions. On realizing this success, Mason determined to accept an invitation to come to Boston and enter upon a musical career. This was in 1826. He was made an honorary member of the Handel and Haydn Society, but declined to accept this, and entered the ranks as an active member. He had been invited to come to Boston by President Winchester and other musical friends and was guaranteed an income of $2,000 a year. He was also appointed, by the influence of these friends, director of music at the Hanover, Green, and Park Street churches, to alternate six months with each congregation. Finally he made a permanent arrangement with the Bowdoin Street Church, and gave up the guarantee, but again friendly influence stepped in and procured for him the position of teller at the American Bank. In 1827 Lowell Mason became president and conductor of the Handel and Haydn Society. It was the beginning of a career that was to win for him as has been already stated the title of "The Father of American Church Music." Although this may seem rather a bold claim it is not too much under the circumstances. Mr. Mason might have been in the average ranks of musicianship had he lived in Europe; in America he was well in advance of his surroundings. It was not too high praise (in spite of Mason's very simple style) when Dr. Jackson wrote of his song collection: "It is much the best book I have seen published in this country, and I do not hesitate to give it my most decided approbation," or that the great contrapuntist, Hauptmann, should say the harmonies of the tunes were dignified and churchlike and that the counterpoint was good, plain, singable and melodious. Charles C. Perkins gives a few of the reasons why Lowell Mason was the very man to lead American music as it then existed. He says, "First and foremost, he was not so very much superior to the members as to be unreasonably impatient at their shortcomings. Second, he was a born teacher, who, by hard work, had fitted himself to give instruction in singing. Third, he was one of themselves, a plain, self-made man, who could understand them and be understood of them." The personality of Dr. Mason was of great use to the art and appreciation of music in this country. He was of strong mind, dignified manners, sensitive, yet sweet and engaging. Prof. Horace Mann, one of the great educators of that day, said he would walk fifty miles to see and hear Mr. Mason teach if he could not otherwise have that advantage. Dr. Mason visited a number of the music schools in Europe, studied their methods, and incorporated the best things in his own work. He founded the Boston Academy of Music. The aim of this institution was to reach the masses and introduce music into the public schools. Dr. Mason resided in Boston from 1826 to 1851, when he removed to New York. Not only Boston benefited directly by this enthusiastic teacher's instruction, but he was constantly traveling to other societies in distant cities and helping their work. He had a notable class at North Reading, Mass., and he went in his later years as far as Rochester, where he trained a chorus of five hundred voices, many of them teachers, and some of them coming long distances to study under him. Before 1810 he had developed his idea of "Teachers' Conventions," and, as in these he had representatives from different states, he made musical missionaries for almost the entire country. He left behind him no less than fifty volumes of musical collections, instruction books, and manuals. As a composer of solid, enduring church music. Dr. Mason was one of the most successful this country has introduced. He was a deeply pious man, and was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Mason in 1817 married Miss Abigail Gregory, of Leesborough, Mass. The family consisted of four sons, Daniel Gregory, Lowell, William and Henry. The two former founded the publishing house of Mason Bros., dissolved by the death of the former in 1869. Lowell and Henry were the founders of the great organ manufacturer of Mason & Hamlin. Dr. William Mason was one of the most eminent musicians that America has yet produced. Dr. Lowell Mason died at "Silverspring," a beautiful residence on the side of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, August 11, 1872, bequeathing his great musical library, much of which had been collected abroad, to Yale College. --Hall, J. H. (c1914). Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company.

Andrew Donaldson

b. 1951 Person Name: Andrew J. Donaldson, 1951- Topics: Rescue Paraphraser of "Praise, my soul, the God who crowns you" in The Book of Praise Andrew Donaldson, a composer and church musician, grew up in northern Ontario, Canada. He attended Glendon College, York University in Toronto, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974. He went on to study classical guitar performance at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, receiving its ARCT (Associate of Royal Conservatory Teachers) degree in 1979. Since then he has worked as a composer and performer in many contexts, in both French and English. Andrew co-edited the Book of Praise (1997), Presbyterian Church in Canada, with Donald Anderson. Their company, Binary Editions, continues to administer copyright for the PCC. In 2007 he was made a Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa, by Knox College of the University of Toronto, for his body of work in congregational song in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. In 2011 Andrew and his wife, Wendy, moved to Geneva, Switzerland where Andrew works as a worship consultant to the World Council of Churches. --Submitted by Andrew and Wendy Donaldson, 13 August 2013

John J. Husband

1760 - 1825 Topics: Rescue Composer of "[A foe is abroad, like a tyrant he reigns]" in Young People's Songs of Praise Rv John Jenkins Husband United Kingdom 1760-1825. Born in Plymouth, England, he worked as a clerk at Surrey Chapel. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1809 and taught music in Philadelphia, PA. It is surmised that he married Anna Elizabeth Kirkhum, but no other family information was found. An author and composer, he also worked as a clerk at St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church. In 1807 he published “A collection of hymns & Psalms for the use of singing school & musical societies”. He died in Philadelphia, PA. John Perry

Clara McAlister Brooks

1882 - 1980 Person Name: Clara M. Brooke Topics: Service Rescue Author of "Save, Oh, Save!" in Songs of Grace and Glory Birth: Oct. 9, 1882, Parke County, Indiana, USA Death: Mar. 20, 1980, Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida, USA Clara McAlister Brooks was one of our early songwriters and four of her pieces are in the current hymnal. From the earliest days of the movement we have had women prominent in all forms of our ministry—missionaries, evangelists, teachers, pastors, and God has honored their sacrificial labors. For that reason we can stand in amazement when here, in the 1970s, such old-line denominations as the Episcopal church are being racked with controversy over whether the ordination of women is permissible. But before we gather Pharisaic robes about ourselves, perhaps we need to look candidly at the way in which we, too, succumbed to some of the cultural and prejudicial patterns of later decades! --www.whwomenclergy.org/articles/

E. E. Hewitt

1851 - 1920 Topics: Rescue Author of "Saved from the wreck" in Pentecostal Hymns Nos. 5 and 6 Combined Pseudonym: Lidie H. Edmunds. Eliza Edmunds Hewitt was born in Philadelphia 28 June 1851. She was educated in the public schools and after graduation from high school became a teacher. However, she developed a spinal malady which cut short her career and made her a shut-in for many years. During her convalescence, she studied English literature. She felt a need to be useful to her church and began writing poems for the primary department. she went on to teach Sunday school, take an active part in the Philadelphia Elementary Union and become Superintendent of the primary department of Calvin Presbyterian Church. Dianne Shapiro, from "The Singers and Their Songs: sketches of living gospel hymn writers" by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (Chicago: The Rodeheaver Company, 1916)

Ida L. Reed

1865 - 1951 Topics: Missionary and Rescue Author of "Go With the Wonderful Story" in New Songs of the Gospel (Nos. 1, 2, and 3 combined) Ida Lilliard Reed (Smith), 1865-1951 Born: November 30, 1865, near Arden, Barbour County, West Virginia. Died: July 8, 1951, Arden, West Virginia. Buried: Ebenezer Methodist Church, Arden, West Virginia. Reed is said to have written 2,000 hymns in her lifetime. In 1939, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers recognized her "substantial contribution to American music" by awarding her a small "weekly bonus." © The Cyber Hymnal™ (www.hymntime.com/tch)

Lida Shivers Leech

1873 - 1962 Person Name: L. S. L. Topics: Missionary and Rescue Author of "He Rescued Me" in New Songs of the Gospel (Nos. 1, 2, and 3 combined) Born: July 12, 1873, Mayville, New Jersey. Died: March 4, 1962, Long Beach, California. Leech spent her childhood in Cape May Court House, New Jersey, and attended Columbia University and Temple University. She played the organ at Bethany Methodist Church in Camden, New Jersey, served as accompanist at evangelical services, and wrote some 500 hymn tunes in her lifetime. Sources-- Emurian, pp. 112-3 Reynolds, p. 336 Lyrics-- God’s Way Is Best I Have Redeemed Thee I’ll Go Anywhere No Fault in Him Some Day He’ll Make It Plain Thine for Service Trust Me, Try Me, Prove Me © 1928 When the Veil is Lifted --www.hymntime.com/tch