Songwriter Kevin Twit, Known For 'Retuning' Hymns, to Host Baylor Church Music Forum

February 4, 2016
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WACO, Texas (Feb. 4, 2016) – Kevin Twit, songwriter, guitarist and founder of Indelible Grace Music, will come to Baylor on Monday, Feb. 8.
Twit will be featured at chapel from 9 a.m. to noon in Waco Hall and will host a church music forum at 6 p.m. in Recital Hall II in Waco Hall.
Twit, who is also a campus minister at Belmont University, led a movement that puts new music to old hymn texts.
"What's new about what Kevin and other Indelible Grace songwriters have done is that they've made use of a new set of contemporary musical styles in their hymns, particularly folk, folk-rock and indie," said Monique Ingalls, Ph.D., assistant professor of music in the School of Music. "They've brought hymns into the digital age through musical recordings and their online hymnbook that features lead sheets and chord charts as well as traditional musical notation. And they've brought to light a number of hymns from hymn writers like Anne Steele, an 18th-century British Baptist, who have been sidelined or forgotten."
Retuning hymns is a time-honored tradition in the church, Ingalls said, and most hymn texts can be sung to many different tunes. Some of the most famous hymns we sing today, including Christmas music, have different tunes now than when they were written.
"Indelible Grace has tended to choose hymns that express a Reformed perspective, rather than the charismatic perspective common in many contemporary songs," Ingalls said. "People sometimes describe hymns as having more 'content'—in other words, they are able to pack in more ideas, or explore a subject in greater depth, than your typical worship song does. Many worshipers find that time-honored lyrics set to contemporary musical styles engage both mind and heart."
Twit's music is set in a folk-like manner that resonates with younger groups, said Randall Bradley, D.M.A., The Ben H. Williams Professor of Music in the School of Music and director of the church music program. The widespread use of Twit's work is what makes it unique, he said.
"Kevin and his collaborators have brought back some texts that had never been used widely, and they have strived to introduce texts that deal with underrepresented themes in contemporary song. They have embraced texts that are theologically rich and poetically imaginative," said Bradley. "I think his tunes and the approachable way in which they are set gives worshipers access to texts that cause them to think more deeply and imagine many often-underrepresented aspects of God more fully."
This event is free and open to the public. Waco Hall is located at 624 Speight Ave.
by Jenna Press, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805

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