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George Ratcliffe Woodward
1848 - 1934 Person Name: George R. Woodward Harmonizer of "PUER NOBIS NASCITUR" in Sing the Faith Educated at Caius College in Cambridge, England, George R. Woodward (b. Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, 1848; d. Highgate, London, England, 1934) was ordained in the Church of England in 1874. He served in six parishes in London, Norfolk, and Suffolk. He was a gifted linguist and translator of a large number of hymns from Greek, Latin, and German. But Woodward's theory of translation was a rigid one–he held that the translation ought to reproduce the meter and rhyme scheme of the original as well as its contents. This practice did not always produce singable hymns; his translations are therefore used more often today as valuable resources than as congregational hymns. With Charles Wood he published three series of The Cowley Carol Book (1901, 1902, 1919), two editions of Songs of Syon (1904, 1910), An Italian Carol Book (1920), and the Cambridge Carol Book
George Ratcliffe Woodward
Michael Praetorius
1571 - 1621 Person Name: Michael Praetorius, 1571-1621 Adapter of "PUER NOBIS" in With One Voice Born into a staunchly Lutheran family, Michael Praetorius (b. Creuzburg, Germany, February 15, 1571; d. Wolfenbüttel, Germany, February 15, 1621) was educated at the University of Frankfort-an-der-Oder. In 1595 he began a long association with Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick, when he was appointed court organist and later music director and secretary. The duke resided in Wolfenbüttel, and Praetorius spent much of his time at the court there, eventually establishing his own residence in Wolfenbüttel as well. When the duke died, Praetorius officially retained his position, but he spent long periods of time engaged in various musical appointments in Dresden, Magdeburg, and Halle. Praetorius produced a prodigious amount of music and music theory. His church music consists of over one thousand titles, including the sixteen-volume Musae Sionae (1605-1612), which contains Lutheran hymns in settings ranging from two voices to multiple choirs. His Syntagma Musicum (1614-1619) is a veritable encyclopedia of music and includes valuable information about the musical instruments of his time.
Bert Polman
Michael Praetorius
Saint Hildegard
1098 - 1179 Person Name: Hidegard of Bingen, 1098-1179 Author of "O Holy Spirit, Root of Life" in Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hildegard, St., Virgin and Abbess, was born at Bockelheim, or Bockenheim, Frankfurt, 1098. Her father, Hildebert, was one of the Knights of Meginhard, Count of Spanheim. When eight years old she was committed to tho care of a sister of the Count, Jutta, the Abbess of St. Disibod, a position in which she was succeeded by Hildegard in 1136. Under the rule of Hildegard the convent became so crowded that a new one was built at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, into which, in 1147, Hildegard removed with eighteen Sisters. Hildegard gained great notoriety in very early life on account of visions to which, it is said, she was subject from her 6th to her 15th year. In later life she filled a considerable place in the history of her times, not only as a writer who had the courage of her opinions, and spared neither high nor low in her vigorous denunciations of their shortcomings, political as well as moral, but as a prophetess and preacher. At the instigation of St. Bernard she took a most prominent part in stirring up the unfortunate crusade which he preached, and engaged in many controversies with the hierarchy of her Church. Though she never ceased to be the abbess of the convent she had founded, much of her time was spent in travelling about the Continent, preaching and prophesying. She died in 1179, and was buried at Eupertsberg, but her remains were removed, on the destruction of that convent by the Swedes, to Eilingen, in 1622.
Though St. Hildegard was a voluminous writer her contributions to the hymnody of her day were neither numerous nor important. Mone gives three sequences which are attributed to her, viz., one on the Holy Spirit, “0 ignis Spiritus paracliti"; another on the Blessed Virgin Mary, "0 Virga ac diadema purpurae Regis"; and a third on St. Disibod, "0 praesul verae civitatis." [Rev. Digby S. Wrangham, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology
Saint Hildegard
Jean Janzen
b. 1933 Person Name: Jean Janzen, b. 1933 Author of "O Holy Spirit, Root of Life" in With One Voice Jean Janzen was born on December 5, 1933, the seventh of Henry Peter Wiebe and Anna Schultz Wiebe's eventual eight children (Three Mennonite Poets 5). For the first five years of her life, Janzen lived in Dalmeny, Saskatchewan (A Cappella 25). In 1938, she moved to Mountain Lake, Minnesota when her schoolteacher father began his second ministry as a pastor (“Coming into Voice”). A year later, the family moved to Kansas (“Coming into Voice”).
Janzen says she cannot remember when she wrote her first poem, but the first evidence of her work is a handwritten book of five poems that she made in third or fourth grade, which was saved by her mother through the family’s many moves (E-mail Interview). She had very little exposure to poetry and literature as a child, except for hymns and Bible stories. She values these elements of her childhood and “treasure[s] the artful rhythms of the King James [Bible]” (E-mail Interview).
Janzen attended Meade Bible Academy, Tabor College, and Grace College (A Cappella 25). It was in college that she had her first real exposure to literature. She was “thrilled, and became a literature major.” She remembers being “enamored” with Emily Dickinson and writing papers about her whenever given the chance. However, she never considered writing poetry as a possible career (E-mail Interview).
Janzen--then Jean Wiebe--married Louis Janzen, a medical student, and the couple moved to Chicago where she worked as a medical secretary while taking courses at Northwestern University (Hostetler, A Cappella 25). Janzen cites this period of her life as the beginning of her love for visual art, calling the Chicago Art Institute the “open gate” for her and her husband where they “became hooked” (Mennonite Life Interview). In 1961, they moved to Fresno, Cal., where Louis worked as a pediatrician in a private practice. Here they raised their two daughters and two sons.
When her youngest child was in school, Janzen “joined a writer’s group at the encouragement of [her] husband and nephew after they read some poems [she] had written as a gift to [her] husband” (E-mail Interview). As her children became older, Janzen went back to college, earning a BA in English from Fresno Pacific College and an MA in Creative Writing and English from California State University at Fresno in 1982. There she studied with poets Peter Everwine, Philip Levine, and C.G. Hanzlicek. Janzen says that after one semester of writing poetry in college, she took the work “seriously” and “imagined the possibility of growing into a poet,” but it took her several years “to be willing to say that out loud” (E-mail Interview).
Rudy Wiebe, a Mennonite novelist, served as a mentor who influenced Janzen's writing career. She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1995 (“Coming into Voice”). Janzen grew up in the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Church and many of her relatives, including her father, were pastors (“Coming into Voice”). This strong connection with the church has had a significant influence on her poetry.
Music has also played an important role in Janzen’s life. Her mother loved music and music was an important part of worship in her church. She learned to play the piano when she was young, later studying music in college and teaching piano for many years (“Coming into Voice”). Janzen finds harmony between the religious and artistic elements of her life, integrating them in a way that enriches both. She also uses her gifts in the church, serving as a minister of worship at the College Community Mennonite Brethren Church in Clovis, Cal., as well as writing hymn texts, which have been set to music and are included in several hymn books.
Other prominent themes in her work include art, history, family, the earth, and her Russian Mennonite ancestors (“Coming into Voice”). Janzen says that “the sensual and spiritual are inevitably intertwined” (Mennonite Life Interview) and it is this element of her work that has attracted the most attention from critics and readers. She emphasizes “the presence of spirit in the flesh,” using rich description of physical objects to reveal deeper emotions and truths. Janzen has taught poetry writing at Fresno Pacific University and Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia.
--www.goshen.edu/mennonitepoetry/
Jean Janzen
Ron Klusmeier
Person Name: Ron Klusmeier, 1946- Composer of "OTTERSPOOR" in The Book of Praise
Ron Klusmeier
