Album Notes

Tim Brace was born in Houston, Texas.

Tim graduated from the University of St. Thomas in Houston with a B.M. in music performance and a B.A. in philosophy in 1978, receiving that university's music department's Outstanding Graduating Senior award. He then entered graduate school at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, majoring in classical guitar performance (studying with George Sakellariou) with a minor in composition (with Jules Langert) and special studies in Early Music on the Baroque lute (with Catherine Liddell). After graduating with an M.M. in performance in 1981, he taught music history, music theory, guitar ensemble and "early music" at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and concertized in the Houston area on classical guitar and on baroque lute.

In 1985, he entered the doctoral program in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas, specializing in the music of China. In the spring of 1987, he was granted a teaching assistantship and for the next four years taught a course on the history of rock music to undergraduates at the University of Texas. In 1987, and again in 1989, he went to China to research Chinese music for his dissertation. His first publication appeared in the summer 1991 edition of the journal Asian Music. He has taught courses in World Music and Chinese Music at the University of Texas, and received his Ph.D. in the summer of 1992.

During this time, Tim also began conducting and writing for church choirs, as well as writing sacred songs for guitar and voice and arranging Christian hymns for solo classical guitar. Tim is currently Music Director and Composer in Residence at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Austin, where he arranges and composes pieces for (and conducts) the church choir, and where he regularly sings and plays guitar. His steel string guitar is a Collings OM-2H, and his classical guitar was made in 1973 by Robert Ruck.

Tim has written more than 50 pieces for classical guitar, arranged or composed more than 30 anthems or preludes for church choir (or subsets of choir), and has written numerous vocal and instrumental descants and solos for church performance. Scores for most of these pieces are available on the Magnolia Arts website at http://www.magnoliaarts.com.



Tim currently lives in Austin, Texas.


Permanent address: 6000 Shepherd Mountain Cove #1602, Austin, TX 78730

Email address: brace'at'magnoliaarts.com (replace 'at' with '@')

Phone: 512-423-4119