OUR COMPOSERS
Jayne Southwick Cool
JAYNE SOUTHWICK COOL (b. 1947) is a poet and composer/arranger of hymns, works for brass, woodwinds, handbells, organ, piano, and mixed and children’s choirs. She is retired from the position of Director of Music at Bethel Lutheran Church in Middleburg Heights, OH, where she served as organist and choir director for fifteen years and worked in children’s music ministry for over twenty-five years. She has taught classroom music and directed bands and choirs in both public and parochial schools. She was a private instructor on French horn for many years. She served on the Worship Committee of The Northeastern Ohio Synod of the ELCA for six years and is available as a resource person in the area of “Small Choirs and Use of Instruments” for that synod. She holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Berea, OH. Graduate studies include work at Trinity Seminary, Kent State University, The University of Akron, Oberlin College, and Baldwin-Wallace College.
Jayne is published by Augsburg Fortress, Choristers Guild, Concordia, G.I.A., Hope, the former Live Oak House, Selah, and Wayne Leupold Editions, Inc. She is a contributor to Evangelical Lutheran Worship, and fourteen of her hymn arrangements are found in its companion volumes, “Introductions and Alternate Accompaniments for Organ”. Her tunes are also included in Community of Christ Sings, At Your Altars: Chants, Refrains, and Short Songs, and her own collection of hymns and tunes, Praise the Lord of Heaven. In July, 2017 Jayne’s tunes for Gracia Grindal’s Texts of Lectionary Hymns Series C was released in the A Treasury of Faith series by WLE.
Jayne’s hymns, tunes, and arrangements have been selected as winners in competitions, including those sponsored by Hymn Society in the United States and Canada; The Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts, in collaboration with the Fred Bock Institute of Music; Macalester Plymouth United Church and Fairmount Presbyterian Church. As a text writer she won the Diane and Paul Jacobson Prize as part of the Martin Luther Hymn Prize sponsored by LutheranArts. Jayne’s works have been commissioned by a number of churches, schools, and music organizations. Two of her Scripture songs appear on the CD “God Is Watching”, a Faith Stepping Stone resource of The Faith Inkubators Music Guild. Jayne was recognized at a choral celebration of women hymn authors and composers who have influenced church history by the Elizabethtown (KY) Area Sacred Community Choir.
Jayne is a member of Choristers Guild and has contributed several articles to its journal, “The Chorister”. She has been a guest conductor/clinician at children’s choir festivals in OH, PA, and VA. A life member of The Hymn Society, she has served as a conference presenter, and has also been a clinician for conferences of The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, The Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts, and The Ohio District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
Jayne lives with her husband Marty (a trumpet player) in North Royalton, Ohio, and has two married children and five grandchildren. She can be contacted at jaynesouthwickcool@gmail.com