Acknowledgements
This volume grew out of a collaboration between the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (ITIA), in the University of St Andrews’ School of Divinity; the University of St Andrews Music Centre; and St Salvator’s Chapel Choir. I would like to thank the exceptional research community of ITIA: students on our MLitt in Theology and the Arts, our cohort of doctoral students, as well as staff and affiliated staff (former and current) generously supported this venture in numerous ways, from providing underpinning research to facilitating workshops. I would like to thank, in particular, Kathryn Wehr and Margaret McKerron for their invaluable help in co-ordinating the theologian-composer partnerships and the TheoArtistry Festival, and Rebekah Dyer for designing and maintaining the TheoArtistry website. Michael Downes (Director of Music), James MacMillan, and Tom Wilkinson (who directed St Salvator’s Chapel Choir) grasped the potential of this project from its inception, and supported it throughout. St Salvator’s Chapel Choir’s speedy mastery of six new pieces of music was especially impressive to witness. I would also like to thank Jeremy Begbie, Chris Bragg, David Brown, Mark Elliott, Michael Ferguson, Stephen Holmes, Gavin Hopps, Sherrill Keefe, Rebekah Lamb, Ann Loades, Michael Partridge, John Perry, Bede Williams, and Judith Wolfe.
It has been a joy and privilege for me to work so closely on this project with the six theologians and six composers in the TheoArtistry partnerships, and with James MacMillan, who mentored the composers on the scheme. I would also like to thank my colleagues Gavin Hopps, William P. Hyland, and Madhavi Nevader, who shared the insights of their research with the theologians and composers, and the Austrian filmmaker David Boos, who produced a documentary, as well as two other short films, about the TheoArtistry collaborations. Twenty-two of the collaborators on this project have also contributed chapters to this volume, and I am deeply grateful to you all. I would like to thank the School of Divinity’s Research Committee for funding a research assistant, and I am especially indebted to Margaret McKerron for her work on the volume. I would particularly like to highlight her role as visual editor, in preparing the volume’s illustrations and innovative graphics, and in tirelessly securing copyright for each image.
In envisaging a volume that incorporates text, images, sound, musical scores, and links to video documentaries, I only ever had one publisher in mind: Open Book Publishers. I am very grateful to the team at OBP, and especially Alessandra Tosi, for collaborating on a volume which, I hope, showcases some of the possibilities of their pioneering publishing model. I am indebted to the peer reviewer for their support of the volume, to Rob Wilding and Lucy Barnes for their very helpful comments, meticulous copyediting, and for preparing the index, and to Luca Baffa for his expert typesetting and production of the final manuscript. I am also grateful to Michael Byce and the University of St Andrews Library, as well as the School of Divinity, for supporting open access, and co-funding the subvention grant. I would like to thank Anna Gatti for her design of the book’s cover, and Monica Park and the Brooklyn Museum, New York, for permission to print the choir book frontispiece illustrated by Simone Camaldolese.
This project would not have got off the ground without the vision and support of its key funders: the University of St Andrews Research Policy Office, the School of Divinity, the University of St Andrews Music Centre, and the Russell Trust. I would like to thank, in particular, Laura Bates, Michael Downes, Mark Elliott and Stephen Holmes. I am also indebted to Kevin Nordby, who provided assistance, and kept my spirits up, in writing funding applications.
Finally, I would like to thank all those, starting with my parents, who gave me the opportunity of a musical formation within the British choral tradition. This volume is dedicated to the Cathedral Choir of St Albans Abbey, where I had the privilege of beginning this formation as a chorister under Barry Rose and Andrew Parnell.