Concordia Seminary, St. Louis invites the public to a special event in its Chapel of St. Timothy and Titus on Sunday, August 29, 2004, at 7:30 p.m. Rev. William H. Otte will lead a presentation combining lecture, hymn signing and vocal offerings titled Luther and Hymnody: To Advance the Gospel. He will be assisted by renowned organist David M. Cherwien and select vocalists from theAmerican Kantorei, under the direction of Robert Bergt. The evening is offered free of charge and no tickets are issued.

Rev. William H. Otte received an A.A. from Concordia College (now University) in St. Paul, Minn.;a B.A. from Concordia Senior College in Ft. Wayne, Ind.; and a M. Div. from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo., in 1972. He earned a S.T.M. in the area of worship and church music from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1973. Pastor Otte has served as pastor and sometimes as musician in Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) parishes in Columbia Heights, Minn.; Hudson and Shawano, Wis.; and is currently senior pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Rochester, Minn. He has also served as adjunct instructor in worship at Concordia University, St. Paul, Minn.

He was appointed to the LCMS Commission on Worship and served there from 1987 to 1992, including one term as chairman of the Commission. He was reappointed to the Commission on Worship in 2001, and currently is completing a term as secretary of the Commission. In various parishes, he has served a vicarage supervisor, and is a regular contributor to Concordia Publishing House’sCreative Worship for the Lutheran Parish resource.

David M. Cherwien serves as director of music at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, Minn., and, in 2002, was appointed director for the National Lutheran Choir, also based in the Twin Cities. He completed the doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance and the master of arts degree in theory and composition at the University of Minnesota. His undergraduate work was in organ performance and music education at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, Minn., where he was honored as distinguished alumni in the fall of 2000. Following his undergraduate work, he studied for two years at the Berlin Church Music School in Berlin, Germany. There he studied improvisation with Renate Zimmermann, organ literature with Karl Hochreither and composition with the late Ernst Pepping. He also has studied organ with Christian Baude in Aix-en-Provence, France, and with Paul Manz, Heinrich Fleischer and Earl Barr in the United States. He is a Fellow with Melodious Accord, studying composition with Alice Parker.

Cherwien is composer of the popular series for organ, Interpretations, based on hymn tunes (Lorenz) and has published other liturgical music for choir and organ with AMSI, Abingdon, GIA, Morningstar, Concordia, Augsburg/Fortress and the Chorister’s Guild. He is author of the book Let the People Sing, a practical guide for those who lead the congregation in song, published in 1997 by Concordia.

Cherwien is a founding member of the Association of Lutheran Musicians, serving in its leadership in a variety of capacities, including national president from 1993 to 1997. He is also active in the American Guild of Ogranists and the Chorister’s Guild.

For more information, call 314.726.0882.