From the 1920s to the 1940s, Leo Sowerby created popular secular works while his sacred compositions led admirers to call him the “dean of American church musicians.” Yet in time, Sowerby’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Canticle of the Sun and the rest of his corpus lost favor with the A-list symphonies and prominent musicians who had once made him a fixture in their repertoires. Joseph Sargent’s biography offers the first focused study of Sowerby’s life and work against the backdrop of the composer’s place in American music. As Sargent shows, Sowerby’s present-day marginalization as a composer relates less to the quality of his work than the fact that today’s historiographical practices and canon-building activities minimize modern church music. Sargent’s re-evaluation draws on a wide range of perspectives and composer’s music and writings to enrich detailed analyses of musical works and a career-spanning consideration of Sowerby’s musical language and aesthetic priorities.

This book lists nearly 3,000 original choral works written by 76 composers active in the United States from roughly 1920 until the present. Styles range from the lush Romanticism of Charles Wakefield Cadman to the stark, dissonant harmonies of Morton Feldman.

Two hundred and eighty songs and ballads trace the growth of America.

Servanthood of Song is a history of American church music from the colonial era to the present. Its focus is on the institutional and societal pressures that have shaped church song and have led us directly to where we are today. The gulf which separates advocates of traditional and contemporary worship—Black and White, Protestant and Catholic—is not new. History repeatedly shows us that ministry, to be effective, must meet the needs of the entire worshiping community, not just one segment, age group, or class. Servanthood of Song provides a historical context for trends in contemporary worship in the United States and suggests that the current polemical divisions between advocates of contemporary and traditional, classically oriented church music are both unnecessary and counterproductive. It also draws from history to show that, to be the powerful component of worship it can be, music—whatever the genre—must be viewed as a ministry with training appropriate to that. Servanthood of Song provides a critical resource for anyone considering a career in either musical or pastoral ministries in the American church as well as all who care passionately about vital and authentic worship for the church of today.

The Dictionary of American Classical Composers covers over 650 composers active from the 18th century to today. Covering all classical styles, it offers the most comprehensive overview of key composers in the United States available. Entries include basic biographical information and critical analysis of each composer's key works and ideas. Entries also include worklists and bibliographic information. Whenever possible, the entries will have been checked by the composers themselves to assure greatest possible accuracy. This new edition, completely updated and expanded from the 1984 edition, also includes over 200 historic photographs.

Combining cultural analysis with historical and personal accounts of a century of musical life at the American Academy in Rome, this volume provides a history of the AAR's Rome Prize in Composition.

Guide to the Pianist's Repertoire continues to be the go-to source for piano performers, teachers, and students. Newly updated and expanded with more than 250 new composers, this incomparable resource expertly guides readers to solo piano literature and provides answers to common questions: What did a given composer write? What interesting work have I never heard of? How difficult is it? What are its special musical features? How can I reach the publisher? New to the fourth edition are enhanced indexes identifying black composers, women composers, and compositions for piano with live or recorded electronics; a thorough listing of anthologies and collections organized by time period and nationality, now including collections from Africa and Slovakia; and expanded entries to account for new material, works, and resources that have become available since the third edition, including websites and electronic resources. The "newest Hinson" will be an indispensible guide for many years to come.