The Bible in Black Arts and Letters

Donté Alexander Ford is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is best described as a musician, minister, and scholar. At Wheaton, Donté teaches Principles in Music and Worship Ministry, coaches Chapel Bands, oversees the music and worship arts offerings in chapel worship, and serves as the Director of the Worship Arts Certificate, and since 2022, Opera Music Director and Conductor.

Donté’s many musical talents have afforded him the opportunity to serve as guest clinician/conductor, lead pianist, opera chorister, resident percussionist, and Minister of Music. He is a published composer with GIA Publications, Inc., and the founder and Artistic Director of Sankofa Chorale, a multi-ethnic choral ensemble that preserves and perpetuates African American choral music while performing that music alongside choral masterworks of the western European choral canon.

As a scholar, Donté focuses on the history and preservation of Black American concert, popular, and sacred music, church hymnody, congregational song, and the history, theology, and music of African American Holiness and Pentecostal movements. His scholarly work includes contributions to the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology and UM Discipleship Ministries’ History of Hymns. Currently, he is a 2024 recipient of the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Teacher-Scholar Grant awarded by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship to continue his work on the hymnody of Bishop Charles Price Jones.

Stephen Michael Newby holds The Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship and is a professor of music at Baylor University, where he also serves as Ambassador for The Black Gospel Music Preservation Program. He has over three decades of experience in university teaching and administration, having previously been the Minister of Worship at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Director of the Center for African American Worship Studies at Trevecca Nazarene University, and a tenured professor of music at Seattle Pacific University. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Stephen earned degrees in music education, jazz composition, and music composition, along with a master of arts in theology.

Stephen has served in church music ministries across the US for over 40 years, with notable achievements in both gospel and concert music. His compositions have been performed by orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony and Savannah Symphony, and his works are recorded by Albany Records and Maranatha Music. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Wesley Work III National Composers’ Award. A former national anthem conductor for the Seattle Sounders FC, Stephen has authored scholarly works published by Rowman & Littlefield and co-authored a book on Andrae Crouch with Robert Darden, Soon and Very Soon, released by Oxford University Press.