Milburn Price
Dr. Milburn Price is Visiting Professor of Choral Studies at Stetson University and Dean Emeritus of the School of Performing Arts at Samford University in Birmingham, AL, where he taught conducting, voice, and church music and conducted the Samford A Cappella Choir and the Samford Orchestra. His educational background includes degrees from the University of Mississippi (B.M.), Baylor University (M.M.), and the University of Southern California (D.M.A.).
Dr. Price has had a varied career in collegiate and church music, as a conductor of choirs and orchestras, and as a collegiate administrator. Price has been involved in activities of the American Choral Directors Association for more than forty years. Under his direction the Furman University Concert Choir performed at the first independent ACDA National Convention in Kansas City in 1971 and was one of five choirs from the United States selected to participate in the 1973 Vienna (Austria) Symposium on Baroque Choral Music co-sponsored by ACDA. He was convention rehearsal conductor for the "Community of Choruses" which performed with the Louisville Orchestra at the 1989 National Convention. He served as President of ACDA’s Southern Division from 1993-95 and as National President from 1999-2001. At the 2006 Southern Division Convention he was awarded the biennial Southern Division ACDA Award for Choral Excellence, and he conducted the Samford A Cappella Choir in a concert performance. He chaired the Search Committee that led to the selection of Timothy Sharp as the new Executive Director for ACDA. He currently chairs the National Archives Committee.
Guest conducting, lecturing, and choral workshop activities have taken Price to twenty-seven states, as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, Scotland, and Switzerland. His choral compositions and arrangements have been published by Hinshaw Music, Carl Fischer, Oxford University Press, Coronet Press, Hope Publishing Company, Alliance Music Publishing, Harold Flammer, Mark Foster, MorningStar, and Genevox, and he has been the recipient of an annual ASCAP Award each year since 1980.
An active church musician, Price has served as part-time Minister of Music in churches in Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas, and California. He has also worked extensively with community choruses, having conducted the Greenville (SC) Civic Chorale from 1967-1981 and the Louisville (KY) Orchestra MasterWorks Chorale from 1990-1993.
Dr. Price is co-author of The Dialogue of Worship, written in collaboration with Gary Furr and published in 1998 by Smyth and Helwys. He is also co-author of A Survey of Christian Hymnody, published by Hope Publishing Company and now in its fifth edition (2010). Additionally, he has contributed articles related to worship and church music to The Hymn, Review and Expositor, The Choral Journal, and Creator magazine and was a contributing author to Handbook to the Baptist Hymnal. He was one of the editors for Celebrating Grace: Hymnal for Baptist Worship, published in 2010.
In 2005 Dr. Price received the Hines Sims Award from the Baptist Church Music Conference for distinguished contributions to the field of church music. He was presented Baylor University’s Award for Exemplary Leadership in Christian Music in 2006.