David Warren Steel

Curriculum Vitae

Address:
904 South Lamar Blvd.
Oxford, Mississippi 38655
E-mail: mudws@olemiss.edu

Experience

2015-present	Professor of Music Emeritus, University of Mississippi.
2011-2015	Professor of Music, University of Mississippi.
1987-2011	Associate Professor of Music, University of Mississippi.
1980-1987	Assistant Professor of Music and Southern Culture, University of Mississippi.
1974-1980	Staff Assistant, Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, University of Michigan; Teaching Assistant, University of Michigan School of Music.

Education

1973-1982	University of Michigan, Ph.D. in musicology, December 1982; A.M. in musicology, May 1976; harpsichord study with Edward Parmentier.
1969-1971	Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, special student.
1964-1968	Harvard College, A.B. cum laude in general studies (linguistics and Germanic languages and literature), June 1968; organ and harpsichord study with James Weaver and John Fesperman.

Awards and Fellowships

1992	Society of Pi Kappa Lambda
1987-1988	National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
1984	National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers
1979	Rackham Dissertation Grant, University of Michigan
1978	Fred Harris Daniels Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society
1968	The Phi Beta Kappa Society
1967	Harvard College Scholarship

Memberships and Offices Held

American Musicological Society, Association of Anglican Musicians, Early Music America, Society for Ethnomusicology (local arrangements co-chair, 1993 meeting), Society for American Music.

Publications

Twelve Preludes for Organ, IMSLP (2022).
"Hugh McGraw (1931-2017): An Inside Look," in Terry E. Miller and Andrew Shahriari, World Music: A Global Journey, 5th ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), p. 430.
"Secular Music in Shape-notes," in Rethinking American Music, Tara Browner and Thomas Riis, eds. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2019), pp. 50-67.
"Shape-Note Singing in Mississippi: A Preliminary History," in The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 6/2 (December 2017).
"Shape-Note Singing," in The Mississippi Encyclopedia (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017).
"The W. T. Gwin Old Harp Singers Trophy: A Unique Piece of Sacred Harp Memorabilia from Mississippi," in The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 4/2 (December 2015).
"Shape-Note Hymnody," "Belknap, Daniel," "Jenks, Stephen," and (with Richard Crawford) "Singing School," in The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2d ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 2013).
The Makers of the Sacred Harp (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois, 2010).
- Reviewed by Tim Eriksen in Southern Spaces (2011)
- Reviewed by Robert Bowman in Journal of Folklore Research (November 2011)
- Reviewed by Drew Beisswenger in Notes 68 (December 2011): 681-83.
- Reviewed by Ed Duling in American Music 30 (Winter 2012): 505-7.
- Reviewed by Eric Saylor in Music and Letters 93 (May 2012): 280-82.
- Reviewed by Alan L. Spurgeon in Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 38 (April 2017): 209-11
"Shape-Note Singing," in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (2010).
"Historic Organs of Oaxaca," Sapaan 3 (Spring 2004).
"Jenks, Stephen," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 2001).
Belknap, Daniel, The Collected Works, ed. David Warren Steel, Music of the New American Nation 14 (New York: Garland, 1999).
Jenks, Stephen, Collected Works, ed. David Warren Steel, Recent Researches in American Music 18 (Madison: A-R Editions, 1995).
"Using Gopher to Retrieve EthnoForum Files," Ethnomusicology Research Digest 94 (20 October 1992).
"Foster, Stephen," "Revival Songs," and "Shape-Note Singing Schools," in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).
"L. J. Jones and The Southern Minstrel (1849)," American Music 6 (Summer 1988), pp. 123-157.
"John Wyeth and the Development of Southern Folk Hymnody" in Music from the Middle Ages Through the 20th Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn McPeek (London: Gordon & Breach, 1988), pp. 357-374.
"Jenks, Stephen," and (with Richard Crawford) "Singing School," in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (London: Macmillan, 1986).
"Stephen Jenks (1772-1856): American Composer and Tunebook Compiler" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1982).
"Truman S. Wetmore and His 'Republican Harmony,'" The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin 45 (July 1980), pp. 75-89.
"Sacred Music in Early Winchester," The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin 45 (April 1980), pp. 33-44.
Missa Toletana, in Congregational Music for Eucharist, Church Hymnal Series 5 (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1980). Excerpts in The Hymnal 1982 (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1985).

Guest Lectures and Conference Papers

"Historic Organs of Oaxaca, Mexico," Musicology-Music Theory Colloquium, University of Alabama, November 2019.
"Shape-Note Singing Traditions in Mississippi," Bicentennial presentation, University of Mississippi Library, February 2017.
"The Makers of the Sacred Harp," Architreats presentation, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama, May 2015.
"The Old Way of Singing," Endowed Chair in Musicology, University of Alabama, February 2015.
"Historic Organs of Oaxaca, Mexico," Faculty Colloquium, University of Mississippi, November 2014.
"Folk Music and the Written Tradition," Keynote Address, Symposium: "We'll All Sing Hallelujah: Sacred Sounds of Alabama," Alabama Folklife Association, Columbiana, Alabama, March 2014.
"The Makers of the Sacred Harp: Innovation and Retention," Keynote Address, Symposium: "Teaching the Harp of Many Voices," Molloy College Suffolk Center, East Farmingdale, New York, February 2011.
"The Makers of the Sacred Harp," Botkin Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., October 2010.
"Sacred Harp Singing," Organization of American Kodaly Educators, Dallas, Texas, 2010.
"The Lancaster Sisters of Georgia: A Musical Family Portrait," Music of the South Symposium, Oxford, Mississippi, 2006.
"A Thousand Tongues: Sacred Harp Singing," American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Birmingham, Alabama, 2005.
"Rough Exteriors Revisited: The Biographies of Sacred Harp Composers," Conference on American Hymnody, Nashville, Tennessee, 2005.
"Far from the Field: Commercial Sacred Harp Recordings, 1922-1942," Association of Recorded Sound Collections, Austin, Texas, 2005.
"American Angels: Early American Hymnody and Sacred Harp Performance Practice," Princeton Atelier, Princeton University, 2003.
"Early Shape-Note Singing in the Shenandoah Valley," Singers Glen Music and Heritage Festival, Singers Glen, Virginia, 1997.
"Herman Mann of Dedham, Music Printer," Sonneck Society, Washington, D.C., 1996.
"The Sacred Harp Singing Tradition in Mississippi," Mississippi Historical Society, Tupelo, Mississippi, 1996.
"Stephen Jenks and Psalmody in the Middle States," guest lecture and workshop, New York State Sacred Harp Singing Convention, Ithaca, New York, 1994.
"Creolization and European Elements in the Afro-American Traditional Chorus," Conference on Contemporary Black American Congregational Song and Worship Traditions, Smithsonian Institution, 1989.
"Sacred Harp Singing Today: A Cultural Geography," guest lecture, Church Music Symposium, Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia, 1988.
"Men of Rough Exteriors: The Biographies of Southern Tunebook Compilers," The Sonneck Society, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1987.
"Shetland Sea-Words and Old Norse Poetic Diction," Mississippi Folklore Society, Oxford, Mississippi, 1986.
"Lazarus J. Jones (1816-1897): Mississippi's First Folksong Collector," Society for Ethnomusicology, Southeast and Caribbean Chapter and Mississippi Folklore Society, Biloxi, Mississippi, 1985.
"Sacred Harp Singers: A Musical Subculture," American Folklore Society, Nashville, Tennessee, 1983.
"Secular Shape-Note Songsters," Society for Ethnomusicology, Southeast and Caribbean Chapter, Tallahassee, Florida, 1981.
"The Invention and Development of the Bow and Bowed Instruments," guest lecture, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, 1977.
"The Hammered Dulcimer in America," American Musical Instrument Society, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1977.
Two papers on early American choral music, Midwest Church Music Conference, East Lansing, Michigan, 1975.

Sound Recordings

F. Couperin, Messe solennelle, (Mass for the Parishes), D. W. Steel, organ, live concert performance, 2013 (YouTube, 2017).
Baroque Pearls: Rediscovered Gems from France and Spain (Centaur CRC 2846, 2007), D.W. Steel, organ
I Belong To This Band: Eighty-Five Years of Sacred Harp Recordings (Dust-to-Digital, 2006), essay, liner notes.
Religion Is a Fortune: Sacred Harp Singing (County CO-3532, 2004), essay, liner notes.
Goodbye, Babylon (Dust-to-Digital, 2003), essay, liner notes.
Wade in the Water, NPR, 1995 (consultant).
Pleasure Tunes My Tongue, 1988 (liner notes).
Mississippi Folk Voices, 1983 (editorial assistance).
Highway 61 Blues, 1983 (editorial assistance).
Fannie Bell Chapman, 1983 (editorial assistance).
Bothered All the Time, 1983 (editorial assistance).

Film and Media

Songs of the Sacred Harp, BBC Radio 4, 2012 (consultant, interviewee).
Dinner on the Grounds: A Soul Reviving Feast, 2009 (consultant, interviewee).
Gloryland: The World of White Gospel, BBC, 2008 (consultant, interviewee).
Awake My Soul 2006 (consultant, interviewee).
Amazing Grace: The American Soul, NHK, 2002 (consultant, interviewee).
The Democratic Spirit in American Art, 1988 (music arranged and performed).
Painting in the South: Artists and Regional Heritage, 1983 (music arranged and performed).

Reviews and Interviews

Review of The Missouri Harmony, or a Choice Collection of Psalm Tunes, Hymns, and Anthems, Wings of Song edition, in The Hymn 57 (Spring 2006): p. 39.
Review of The Chattahoochee Musical Convention, 1852-2002: A Sacred Harp Historical Sourcebook, in Music Library Association Notes 60 (September 2003), pp. 134-36.
Review of The Colored Sacred Harp, in American Music 14 (Spring 1996), pp. 127-28.
Review of Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology 8: Issues in Organology, in Asian Music 25 (1993-94), pp. 213-17.
Review of Deborah Carlton Loftis, "Big Singing Day in Benton, Kentucky: A Study of the History, Ethnic Identity and Musical Style of Southern Harmony Singers," Southern Baptist Church Music Journal vol. 9 (1990), pp. 76-78.
Review of Mai Hogan Kelton, "Analysis of the Music Curriculum of Sacred Harp (American Tune-Book, 1971 Edition) and Its Continuing Traditions," in CRME Bulletin 103 (Winter 1990), pp. 39-43.
Review of William Walker, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, ed. by Glenn C. Wilcox, in Ethnomusicology 33 (Spring/Summer 1989), pp. 343-45.
Review of R. Gerald Alvey, Dulcimer Maker: The Craft of Homer Ledford, in Western Folklore 45 (July 1986), pp. 223-224.
Review of Norman Cazden, Herbert Haufrecht and Norman Studer, Folk Songs of the Catskills, in Journal of Musicological Research 5 (November 1984), pp. 260-264.
Review, with Richard Crawford, of Buell E. Cobb, Jr., The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music, in American Historical Review 84 (October 1979), p. 1154.
Interview with B. B. King (with Suzanne Flandreau and Bill Ferris), Living Blues 68 (1986), pp. 12-14.

Grants and Consultantships

2015	Endowed Chair in Musicology, University of Alabama.
2005, 2010-14, 2018	Instructor, Camp Fasola, a residential singing school.
2008	Consultant for Blue Ridge Music Center, supported by National Council for Traditional Arts and National Park Service
1990	Consultant for State Board of Education, Wrote Mississippi Culture Curriculum for Ninth Grade Social Studies
1987-1991	Consultant Specialist, Sacred Harp Publishing Company, Carrollton, Georgia, for new edition of The Sacred Harp.
1985	Instructor, Regional Heritage Project, Booneville, Mississippi, supported by Mississippi Council for the Humanities.
1984	Folklife Presenter, Louisiana Folklife Festival, Louisiana World Exposition.
1983	Instructor, Sacred Harp Singing School, Pittsboro, Mississippi, supported by National Endowment for the Arts.
1983	Instructor, Mississippi Culture Summer Seminar, Jackson State University.
1981-1984	Director, Oxford Folklife Festival, supported by National Endowment for the Arts and Mississippi Arts Commission.

Warren Steel (mudws@olemiss.edu)

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