Professor Emeritus, the Rev. Dr. Paul Weber and retired Associate Professor Florence Jowers — no strangers to the LR community — are leading a “Hymn Sing” workshop designed for students, lay people, parish and area musicians, clergy and all who love to sing hymns.

Weber will introduce songs from his expansive new hymn collection, "So Great a Cloud of Witnesses." Participants will enjoy hearing the background of the hymns before singing them and will affirm the importance of community song for faith and life. Weber’s original music beautifully portrays his own texts and those of prominent hymn writers such as Brian Wren, Carl Daw, Gracia Grindal and Jaroslav Vajda.

Weber is a pastor of the North Carolina Synod (ELCA) with 20 years of parish experience. He is also professor emeritus of church music at Lenoir-Rhyne and past conductor of the LR A Cappella Choir. Accompanist for the Hymn Sing will be Florence Jowers, a deacon of the Virginia Synod (ELCA) who served as Lenoir-Rhyne University organist and conductor of the Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus for many years.

During the 2022-2023 academic year Weber and Jowers were visiting professors of church music in the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Married for 45 years, they have retired to Staunton, Virgina, and travel often to visit their three children and six grandchildren.

This Hymn Sing is underwritten in part by a grant from the Michael Peeler Fund of the North Carolina Synod (ELCA). Permission for use of the hymn texts may be secured at onelicense.net and graphics will be available at sundaysandseasons.com or from the composer at pauldweber.com. Copies of the collection will be provided for workshop participants and will be available for purchase.