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Christopher M. Idle

b. 1938 Person Name: Christopher Idle (1938-) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Paraphraser of "God, We Praise You" in Common Praise (1998) Christopher Martin Idle (b. Bromley, Kent, England, 1938) was educated at Elthan College, St. Peter's College, Oxford, and Clifton Theological College in Bristol, and was ordained in the Church of England. He served churches in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria; London; and Oakley, Suffolk; and recently returned to London, where he is involved in various hymnal projects. A prolific author of articles on the Christian's public responsibilities, Idle has also published The Lion Book of Favorite Hymns (1980) and at least one hundred of his own hymns and biblical paraphrases. Some of his texts first appeared in hymnals published by the Jubilate Group, with which he is associated. He was also editor of Anglican Praise (1987). In 1998 Hope Publishing released Light Upon the River, a collection of 279 of his psalm and hymn texts, along with suggested tunes, scripture references, and commentary. Bert Polman

C. Hubert H. Parry

1848 - 1918 Person Name: Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Composer of "RUSTINGTON" in Common Praise (1998) Charles Hubert Hastings Parry KnBch/Brnt BMus United Kingdom 1848-1918. Born at Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, England, son of a wealthy director of the East India Company (also a painter, piano and horn musician, and art collector). His mother died of consumption shortly after his birth. His father remarried when he was three, and his stepmother favored her own children over her stepchildren, so he and two siblings were sometimes left out. He attended a preparatory school in Malvern, then at Twyford in Hampshire. He studied music from 1856-58 and became a pianist and composer. His musical interest was encouraged by the headmaster and by two organists. He gained an enduring love for Bach’s music from S S Wesley and took piano and harmony lessons from Edward Brind, who also took him to the ‘Three Choirs Festival in Hereford in 1861, where Mendelssohn, Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven works were performed. That left a great impression on Hubert. It also sparked the beginning of a lifelong association with the festival. That year, his brother was disgraced at Oxford for drug and alcohol use, and his sister, Lucy, died of consumption as well. Both events saddened Hubert. However, he began study at Eton College and distinguished himself at both sport and music. He also began having heart trouble, that would plague him the rest of his life. Eton was not known for its music program, and although some others had interest in music, there were no teachers there that could help Hubert much. He turned to George Elvey, organist of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and started studying with him in 1863. Hubert eventually wrote some anthems for the choir of St George’s Chapel, and eventually earned his music degree. While still at Eton, Hubert sat for the Oxford Bachelor of Music exam, the youngest person ever to have done so. His exam exercise, a cantata: “O Lord, Thou hast cast us out” astonished the Heather Professor of Music, Sir Frederick Ouseley, and was triumphantly performed and published in 1867. In 1867 he left Eton and went to Exeter College, Oxford. He did not study music there, his music concerns taking second place, but read law and modern history. However, he did go to Stuttgart, Germany, at the urging of Henry Hugh Pierson, to learn re-orchestration, leaving him much more critical of Mendelssohn’s works. When he left Exeter College, at his father’s behest, he felt obliged to try insurance work, as his father considered music only a pastime (too uncertain as a profession). He became an underwriter at Lloyd’s of London, 1870-77, but he found the work unappealing to his interests and inclinations. In 1872 he married Elizabeth Maude Herbert, and they had two daughters: Dorothea and Gwendolen. His in-laws agreed with his father that a conventional career was best, but it did not suit him. He began studying advanced piano with W S Bennett, but found it insufficient. He then took lessons with Edward Dannreuther, a wise and sympathetic teacher, who taught him of Wagner’s music. At the same time as Hubert’s compositions were coming to public notice (1875), he became a scholar of George Grove and soon an assistant editor for his new “Dictionary of Music and Musicians”. He contributed 123 articles to it. His own first work appeared in 1880. In 1883 he became professor of composition and musical history at the Royal College of Music (of which Grove was the head). In 1895 Parry succeeded Grove as head of the college, remaining in the post the remainder of his life. He also succeeded John Stainer as Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford (1900-1908). His academic duties were considerable and likely prevented him from composing as much as he might have. However, he was rated a very fine composer, nontheless, of orchestrations, overtures, symphonies, and other music. He only attempted one opera, deemed unsuccessful. Edward Elgar learned much of his craft from Parry’s articles in Grove’s Dictionary, and from those who studied under Parry at the Royal College, including Ralph Vaughn Williams, Gustav Holst, Frank Bridge, and John Ireland. Parry had the ability when teaching music to ascertain a student’s potential for creativity and direct it positively. In 1902 he was created a Baronet of Highnam Court in Gloucester. Parry was also an avid sailor and owned several yachts, becoming a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1908, the only composer so honored. He was a Darwinian and a humanist. His daughter reiterated his liberal, non-conventional thinking. On medical advice he resigned his Oxford appointment in 1908 and produced some of his best known works. He and his wife were taken up with the ‘Suffrage Movement’ in 1916. He hated to see the WW1 ravage young potential musical talent from England and Germany. In 1918 he contracted Spanish flu during the global pandemic and died at Knightsscroft, Rustington, West Sussex. In 2015 they found 70 unpublished works of Parry’s hidden away in a family archive. It is thought some may never have been performed in public. The documents were sold at auction for a large sum. Other works he wrote include: “Studies of great composers” (1886), “The art of music” (1893), “The evolution of the art of music” (1896), “The music of the 17th century” (1902). His best known work is probably his 1909 study of “Johann Sebastian Bach”. John Perry

Thomas H. Troeger

1945 - 2022 Person Name: Thomas H. Troeger (1945-) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Author of "Wind Who Makes All Winds That Blow" in Common Praise (1998) Thomas Troeger (1945-2022), professor of Christian communication at Yale Divinity school, was a well known preacher, poet, and musician. He was a fellow of Silliman College, held a B.A. from Yale University; B.D. Colgate Rochester Divinity School; S.T. D. Dickinson College, and was awarded an honorary D.D. from Virginia Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1970 and the Episcopal Church in 1999, and remained dually aligned with both traditions. Troerger led conferences and lectures in worship and preaching throughout North America, as well as in Denmark, Holland, Australia, Japan, and Africa. He served as national chaplain to the American Guild of Organists, and for at least three years he hosted the Season of Worship broadcast for Cokesbury. He was president of the Academy of Homiletics as well as Societas Homiletica. He had, as of 2009, written 22 books in the areas of preaching, poetry, hymnody, and worship. Many of his hymn texts are found in New Hymns for the Lectionary (Oxford, 1992), and God, You Made All Things for Singing (Oxford, 2009). Laura de Jong

Joseph Parry

1841 - 1903 Person Name: Joseph Parry (1841-1903) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Composer of "ABERYSTWYTH" in Common Praise (1998) Joseph Parry (b. Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales, 1841; d. Penarth, Glamorganshire, 1903) was born into a poor but musical family. Although he showed musical gifts at an early age, he was sent to work in the puddling furnaces of a steel mill at the age of nine. His family immigrated to a Welsh settlement in Danville, Pennsylvania in 1854, where Parry later started a music school. He traveled in the United States and in Wales, performing, studying, and composing music, and he won several Eisteddfodau (singing competition) prizes. Parry studied at the Royal Academy of Music and at Cambridge, where part of his tuition was paid by interested community people who were eager to encourage his talent. From 1873 to 1879 he was professor of music at the Welsh University College in Aberystwyth. After establishing private schools of music in Aberystwyth and in Swan sea, he was lecturer and professor of music at the University College of South Wales in Cardiff (1888-1903). Parry composed oratorios, cantatas, an opera, orchestral and chamber music, as well as some four hundred hymn tunes. Bert Polman

John E. Bowers

1923 - 2019 Person Name: John Edward Bowers (b. 1923) Scripture: Ezekiel 2 Author of "The prophets spoke in days of old" in Ancient and Modern

Thomas Jackson

1715 - 1781 Person Name: Thomas Jackson (1715-1781) Scripture: Ezekiel 2 Composer of "JACKSON" in Ancient and Modern Jackson played the organ at Newark, England (1768-81). His works include: Twelve Psalm Tunes and Eighteen…Chants, circa 1780 --www.hymntime.com/tch

Frederick W. Foster

1760 - 1835 Person Name: Frederick William Foster (1760-1835) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Translator of "God, Your Glorious Presence" in Common Praise (1998) Foster, Frederick William, second son. of William Foster, was born at Bradford, Aug. 1, 1760, and educated at Fulneck, near Leeds, and at Barby in Prussian Saxony. Entering the Moravian Ministry he held several appointments until 1818, when he was consecrated a Bishop of the Moravian Church. He died at Ockbrook, near Derby, April 12, 1835. He compiled the Moravian Hymn Book of 1801, the Supplement of 1808, and the revised edition of 1826. His translations from the German, and his original hymns appeared in that collection. Two of his original hymns are in the Irish Church Hymnal, 1873; (1) "Lord, Who didst sanctify" 1808 (Holiness desired); and (2) "With thanks before the Lord appear," 1826 (Praise of the Saviour). [George Arthur Crawford, M. A.] --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

William Mercer

1811 - 1873 Person Name: William Mercer (1811-1873) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Translator of "God, Your Glorious Presence" in Common Praise (1998) Mercer, William, M.A., born at Barnard Castle, Durham, 1811, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1835). In 1840 he was appointed Incumbent of St. George's, Sheffield. He died at Leavy Greave, Sheffield, Aug. 21, 1873. His principal work was:—- The Church Psalter and Hymn Book, comprising The Psalter, or Psalms of David, together with the Canticles, Pointed for Chanting; Four Hundred Metrical Hymns and Six Responses to the Commandments; the whole united to appropriate Chants and Tunes, for the use of Congregations and Families, by the Rev. William Mercer, M.A. . .. Assisted by John Goss, Esq…., 1854; enlarged 1856; issued without music, 1857; quarto edition 1860; rearranged edition (Oxford edition) 1864; Appendix 1872. For many years this collection was at the head of all the hymn-books in the Church of England, both in circulation and influence. Its large admixture of Wesleyan hymns, and of translations from the German gave it a distinct character of its own, and its grave and solemn music was at one time exceedingly popular. To it Mercer contributed several translations and paraphrases from the Latin and German, the latter mainly from the Moravian hymn-books; but his hymn-writing was far less successful than his editing, and has done nothing to increase his reputation. -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

John Miller

1756 - 1810 Person Name: John Miller (1756-1810) Scripture: Ezekiel 1, 2:1-2 Translator of "God, Your Glorious Presence" in Common Praise (1998) Miller, John (sometimes given as Müller, or Muller), was a Moravian minister at various places in England and Ireland from 1768; finally at Cootehill, Co. Cavan, from 1805 to 1810. His original hymns and translations were contributed to the Moravian Hymn Book, 1789. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

Christopher Webber

b. 1932 Person Name: Christopher L. Webber, 1932- Scripture: Ezekiel 2:1-5 Author of "Your Word, O God, a Living Sword" in Common Praise (1998)