Rest in Peace, Rise in Glory
Raymond Glover, general editor of the Episcopal Church’s seventh authorized hymnal and a founder of the Association of Anglican Musicians, died Dec. 15 in Alexandria, Virginia. He was 89.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Glover was a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral beginning in his childhood. After completing degrees at the University of Toronto and Union Theological Seminary, he returned to St. Paul’s as cathedral organist and choirmaster.
During the 1960s Glover served on the Standing Commission on Church Music, taught at Berkeley Divinity School, and, with Jim Litton and Gerre Hancock, founded the American Cathedral Organists and Choirmasters Association, which later became the Association of Anglican Musicians. He was the association’s president from 1968 to 1969.
He was professor of church music and chapel organist at Virginia Theological Seminary from 1991 to 2000, and served on the search committee that called church musician William Bradley Roberts to join the faculty in 2008. Glover was buried on the seminary grounds on Dec. 28. Both VTS and AAM welcome gifts in his honor.
The Hymnal 1982 was released only three years after the revised Book of Common Prayer, and it replaced an authorized edition from 1940. General Convention had authorized earlier hymnals in 1789, 1826, 1871, 1892, and 1916. After overseeing the 1982 revision, Glover edited the four-volume Hymnal 1982 Companion.
He was a founder of and curriculum writer for the Leadership Program for Musicians.
“He is one of our renaissance musicians, a churchman gifted with a tremendous range of creativity in the service of our Lord, our church, and the church’s worship in liturgy and song,” Hancock said in a tribute written for TLC by Roberts [“Pastor, Teacher, Musician,” March 28, 1999]. “His leadership and inspired influence as liturgist, writer and musician are widely felt throughout our Anglican Communion. We owe him a great debt of gratitude.”
“In the commonplace book of my mind, Ray Glover is a shining example of the gracious working of the Holy Spirit in the church and the world,” the Rev. John L. Hooker said in the same article. “To the Herculean task of editing the Hymnal 1982 and its world-class Companion, he brought exactly the right balance of prophetic vision and pastoral sensitivity, of catholic scope and denominational particularity.”
His wife, Joyce MacDonald Glover, died in 2013. Glover is survived by his daughters, Margaret and Katie, and grandchildren Sarah and Simon Lasseron and Rachel and Susannah Mahon.
Adapted from ENS
