JSU to host annual Church Music Workshop of America

By Staff
special to The Star
May 25, 2002
JACKSON The 26th anniversary of The Church Music Workshop of America will be celebrated with nationally acclaimed musical consultants and an adult and children's choir concert at Jackson State University.
Co-sponsored by JSU and the Eighth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the workshop is scheduled for June 17-20 in the F.D. Hall Music Center on the JSU campus.
Focusing on the theme "Music: The Handmaiden of Worship," the workshop will feature a variety of seminars relating to various aspects of worship service music. Noted for its unique instructional methods, the workshop draws church musicians from throughout the nation.
The workshop will provide proven principles on church music administration, music staff and training development and a wealth of material on music for a diverse congregation.
Participants will take courses that integrate music performance skills with liturgical and theological study. They will enjoy hands-on activities and exhibits from throughout the country.
Bishop C. Garnett Henning, presiding prelate of the Eighth Episcopal District of the AME Church, will lead the ministers' panel and make two presentations during the four-day event.
Keynote speaker for the workshop is Beverly Thomas, minister of music at Ebenezer AME Church for 18 years and organist/choir director at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church for seven years.
Trained at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the University of Michigan, Thomas has helped award more than $150,000 to college students in her capacity as Episcopal supervisor.
Other workshop clinicians include:
Roland Carter, composer, arranger and conductor; the U.C. Foundation professor of music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; and founder of MAR-VEL, a publishing company specializing in music by black composers.
V. Michael McKay, a nationally known gospel consultant from Houston, whose songs have been recorded by the Mississippi Mass Choir, Yolanda Adams and Daryl Coley.
Don Lee White, an organist-director and professor of music emeritus at California State University, who will conduct sessions on congregational singing and the history of African-American hymnology.
James M. Hawkins, director of the award-winning Jim Hill High School Choir in Jackson.
Lannie Spann McBride, a noted Jackson Public Schools music specialist, who will present children's music workshops.
Ronald Stevens, a praise song composer from Atlanta.
Final registration is June 17 at 8 a.m. in the F.D. Hall Music Center.
The registration fee is $75 a person. A workshop music pack is $30. Children's registration and the celebration banquet are $20. Academic credit is available for graduate and undergraduate students.
A closing workshop concert will be June 20 at 7:30 p.m. at the music center's recital hall.
The official host site for the workshop is Jackson Southwest Hotel at Highway 80 West.
To make reservations, call (601) 355-3472. For more information, call (601) 979-2141; e-mail jimmie.james@jsums.edu; or visit the JSU Web site at www.jsums.edu and click on Church Music Workshop of America.