Today on the podcast we speak to organist and composer Rebecca te Velde about the power a simple hymn can hold in any denomination's church service. Rebecca is the co-editor of the book series, "Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists," as well as the author and editor of Oxford's "Hymn Miniatures" series. The impact a hymn tune can have on the continuity of a service is large, and Rebecca helps us to re-imagine how we, as pastoral musicians, can use those hymn tunes to amplify the scriptural message - and the message of the overall season.
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Bio: Rebecca Groom te Velde
Rebecca Groom te Velde, M.Mus., AAGO, is a fourth-generation organist, composer, and teacher. She is Director of Music and Organist Emerita at First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma, having served there 33 years as Organist and 10 also as Director of Music. Over the previous 17 years, she served numerous congregations and denominations in the Seattle area, in Fargo, ND, and in London, Ontario.
Undergraduate studies in organ performance, composition and church music were with her father, Lester H. Groom, at Seattle Pacific University (B.A.). She holds the M.Mus. in organ performance and literature from The University of Western Ontario, where she studied with Hugh J. McLean (organ) and Jack Behrens (composition). In 1980-81, she was a finalist in the National Organ Playing Competition of the American Guild of Organists, a selected participant in the Flor Peeters International Masterclass in Mechelen, Belgium, and studied with Michael Schneider at the Musikhochschule Köln on a full grant from the German Academic Exchange Service. Further organ study was with Almut Rössler and Gerald Frank. She has concertized in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and has taught as an adjunct instructor at Oklahoma State University (Introduction to Music) and Oklahoma City University (organ).
Becky is the U.S. co-editor of Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists Vols. 1–9 (with U.K. co-editors David Blackwell Vols. 1-6, David Bednall Vol. 7, and Alan Bullard Vols. 8-9) and a contributing composer for the series. Her choral music is published by Oxford University Press and Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and her organ compositions are published by OUP, Darcey Press, GIA, and Selah Music Publishing. She has performed and presented workshops at numerous national and regional AGO conventions, as well as for many AGO chapters. She was a commissioned composer for the national AGO 2016 Houston’s convention Bayoubüchlein project, and also for the 2023 SW Region AGO convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where son Brent te Velde premiered the resulting Partita on ‘Bereden väg for Herran’.
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