FOR RELEASE
8 AM EDT, July 27, 2000

COMPOSER ALICE PARKER HONORED AS FELLOW BY HYMN SOCIETY

New York, NY, -- Alice Parker has been honored by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada at its annual conference at in Boston from July 23-27, 2000, by being designated as a Fellow of the Hymn Society. She was honored, according to Carl P. Daw, Jr., Executive Director of the Hymn Society, for her "gift of helping congregations to sing better."

The Hymn Society is an organization of member pastors, musicians, scholars, poets, composers and other hymn lovers. The organization promotes song as an integral component of worship, promotes the writing and singing of new texts and tunes, and promotes learning about the origins of the words and music sung as hymns. The Society was founded in 1922 and has over 2500 members in the United States and Canada and around the world. Its offices have been in New York, Ohio, and Texas until moving to Boston in 1996.

"Fellows of the Hymn Society," began Carl P. Daw, Jr., Executive Director, "are those who have made a special contribution to the development of congregational song, either as authors, composers, or editors. Alice Parker was selected in recognition of her many contributions to group singing, the engaging nature of her presentations, and the fresh ways she helps congregations look at and sing familiar material." Daw continued, "Ms. Parker led the opening session of the Hymn Society, a New England Hymn Festival, in which we investigated and sang a wonderful range of 18th- and 19th-century settings of psalms and hymns. Her personality, her knowledge, her creative and relaxed style of leadership and her humor got the conference started on the best possible note, no pun intended. And her plenary session on the last day of the conference explored shape note music, ethnic African, Polish and Russian songs, and strophic hymns to demonstrate how congregations can be helped to sing more thoughtfully and more musically. "Alice Parker is a national, no international, treasure for those with song in their hearts. I doubt that anyone who has sung in a church choir in the past 40 years has not been touched by Parker’s arrangements or compositions; many recent hymnals include her original hymn tunes and arrangements."

Alice Parker began her composition career in 1948, and since that time has composed over 700 works. From her legendary collaboration with Robert Shaw came hundreds of arrangements of folk materials. For the past 40 years, her compositions have included songs, anthems, cantatas, operas and instrumental works. Alice Parker's published work has been performed by generations of professional and amateur singers alike. She has conducted thousands of seminars, workshops, clinics and sings for community groups, professional conferences, schools, colleges and religious organizations. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from Hamilton College, Bluffton College, Macalester College and Westminster Choir College. Chorus America has listed her as one of the most important and widely recognized composers of choral music of the 20th Century.

In addition to being honored by the Hymn Society this year, Ms. Parker received the Distinguished Composer Award from the American Guild of Organists earlier in July. She was honored in June by Chorus America. For the Alice Parker recording project, the choral organization Melodious Accord has just been awarded a $25,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Two international engagements this summer included conducting her compositions at the Innsbruck International Choral Festival in Innsbruck, Austria, and being a featured presenter at the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors in Edmonton, Alberta.

"The Hymn Society is thrilled to have had another exhausting, fulfilling week of peak experiences in many kinds of congregational song,"concluded Daw. "We’re already planning for a great conference for next year which will be held in Independence, Missouri, from July 15-19, 2001."

For further information about the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, contact Carl P. Daw, Jr., Executive Director, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, or call 800 THE HYMN.