Music In American Religious Experience

Since the appearance of The Bay Psalm Book in 1640, music has served as a defining factor for American religious experience and has been of fundamental importance in the development of American identity and psyche. The essays in this long-awaited volume explore the diverse ways in which musicshapes the distinctive presence of religion in the United States and address the fullness of music's presence in American religious history. Timely, challenging, and stimulating, this collection will appeal to students and scholars of American history, American studies, religious studies, theology, musicology, and ethnomusicology, as well as to practicing sacred musicians.

Philip V. Bohlman teaches at the University of Chicago, where he is Mary Werkman Professor of the Humanities and of Music, Chair of the Committee on Jewish Studies, and Artistic Director of the cabaret ensemble, New Budapest Orpheum Society.
Edith L. Blumhofer is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College (Illinois).
Maria M. Chow is a native of Hong Kong, and her Ph.D. dissertation (University of Chicago) is a study of the modern discourse on music and its impact on the Chinese national self-identity in the first half of the twentieth century.