Paul D. Weber, D.M.A., M.Div.
Professor Emeritus of Church Music
Director of Choral Activities
Coordinator, Sacred Music Program
Lenoir-Rhyne University
Hickory, North Carolina 28601
The Reverend Dr. Paul Weber is Professor Emeritus of Church Music at Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, North Carolina. For seventeen years he served as Director of the A Cappella Choir which toured annually across the nation and abroad to Germany, the Baltic States, Poland, Russia, Finland, and Costa Rica. He was the conductor of the Chapel Choir for twenty years, and Founder and Coordinator of the university’s Sacred Music Program, developing it into a nationally recognized undergraduate course of study whose graduates now serve with distinction in churches and educational institutions.
Weber’s compositions run the gamut from advanced a cappella works to large orchestrated pieces; from original hymns such as those contained in Lutheran Service Book and Evangelical Lutheran Worship to expanded hymn arrangements, such as A Mighty Fortress, sung by twenty-five thousand youth with concert band and choir at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Some of his accessible church anthems are found in the MorningStar Music Publishers choral series, Sacred Music from Lenoir-Rhyne.
In February 2007, Weber served as the producer of “Evangelical Lutheran Worship: Hymns Audio Edition, Volume 2” available from Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This compact disc features the A Cappella Choir and Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus in hymn settings for choir, organ, and instruments arranged by Weber and former sacred music graduate, Michael Costello.
Weber received the Raabe Prize for Excellence in Sacred Composition from the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians for a career of outstanding contributions to the profession as exemplified in a specific work. The winning anthem, Arise, Shine, published by Augsburg Fortress, was first sung by the Lenoir-Rhyne A Cappella Choir on its 2001 tour and has received subsequent performances by the Luther College Nordic and Cathedral Choirs, the St. Olaf Chapel Choir and Cantorei, and by the National Lutheran Choir at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles.
Weber conducted the Lenoir-Rhyne University A Cappella Choir in an array of styles and literature with attention given to works from the Lutheran tradition. His own pieces exemplify the continuation of that tradition and have been particular favorites among the Choir’s audiences. Weber’s Magnificat (1997) for soprano and treble soloists, chamber orchestra, mixed and treble choirs has received performances nationally and abroad, most recently at the University of Minnesota.
Luthers letztes Gebet, a setting of Martin Luther’s last prayer for mixed choir and solo trombone, was premiered by the A Cappella Choir in concert venues throughout Germany, including a performance at Luther’s grave in the Castle Church of Wittenberg. His setting of Psalm 99, The Lord Reigns, was sung by the Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus for Evensong at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. In 2013 the National Lutheran Choir commissioned Weber to composed the three movement, Distler-inspired, a cappella motet, With High Delight and presented its premier performance in the Chapel of the Resurrection of Valparaiso University for the national gathering of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Weber’s handwritten manuscripts and his complete catalog of computer notated works is found at the Center for Church Music of Concordia University Chicago.
Weber presently conducts the Chamber Choir for Bach Around the Clock of Staunton, Virginia, and continues to fill commissions. In retirement he also serves as supply clergy for Episcopal and Lutheran parishes. During the 2022-23 academic year he will be Visiting Professor of Church Music in the School of Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South.
Weber received a doctor of musical arts degree in choral conducting from The University of Iowa, a master of musical arts degree in composition from Yale University, and a master of music degree in organ performance and composition from Washington University, St. Louis. His composition teachers have included Krzysztof Penderecki, Jacob Druckman, Bruce MacCombie, Ralph Schultz, Jan Bender, and Roland Jordan. He has studied choral repertoire and conducting with Tamara Brooks, Richard Bloesch, Jon Bailey, Joseph Flummerfelt, and Robert Bergt. Prior to his tenure at Lenoir-Rhyne University, Weber held conducting positions at Thiel College, Greenville, Pennsylvania, and The College of Idaho, Caldwell, Idaho.
He was in the first graduating class of Christ Seminary-Seminex and received a master of divinity degree through the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago which named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 2011. He attended Concordia College, Bronxville, New York, and Concordia Senior College, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, before registering at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. He was ordained in 1979. His ministry has included two pastorates in western Pennsylvania. Weber is married to Florence Jowers, former University Organist at Lenoir-Rhyne and Conductor of the Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus. They are the parents of three adult children: Erin, Jeffrey, and Amanda.
Education
D.M.A., The University of Iowa (Choral Conducting)
M.M.A., M.M., Yale University (Composition)
M.M., Washington University, St. Louis (Composition/Organ)
M.Div., Christ Seminary–Seminex (The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago)
So much to sing about, all I have seen and heard,
Text: Jaroslav Vajda, Copyright © 1989 Concordia Publishing House,
your glory in my talents use my best reward:
that others see what I have seen and sing with me:
“It is the Lord!”
set to music in Weber’s “So Much to Sing About”
Paul D. Weber 