Rock Of Ages – TB/TTB/TTBB

A time honored text to a new tune by Michael Cox, this is a welcome adaptation for male choruses.
About Dr. Michael Cox

The musical world of Dr. Michael Cox is remarkably expansive. Within his catalog, a simple piece for unison children’s voices can stand beside an eight-movement sacred work for choir, soloists, and orchestra. A contemplative prayer may be followed by a lively work for men’s chorus, four trombones, tuba, and piano. This range reflects the career of a composer who understands that music can be serious without becoming remote, accessible without becoming predictable, and sacred without losing its capacity for imagination.

Dr. Cox is an ASCAP award-winning composer, conductor, pianist, and educator. He currently serves as Composer-in-Residence at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. During a career extending across more than five decades, he has worked as a university professor, ensemble director, choral clinician, orchestral conductor, music copyist, and engraver. These experiences have allowed him to participate in nearly every stage of music-making, from the first compositional idea to the preparation, rehearsal, and performance of the finished score.

His formal education anticipated that unusually complete musical life. Dr. Cox earned a Bachelor of Music with honors in piano performance from Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and a Doctor of Music in composition from Florida State University. Each degree developed a different aspect of his musicianship: the sensitivity of the pianist, the broad perspective of the conductor, and the structural imagination of the composer.

Oklahoma Baptist University soon became more than his alma mater. Dr. Cox returned to OBU in 1972 and served on its faculty until 1990, teaching composition, conducting, music theory, and church music. For 13 years, he directed the Bison Glee Club, becoming the second conductor in the history of an ensemble founded in 1938. The Glee Club’s combination of musicianship, fellowship, travel, and service provided an ideal setting for a teacher who viewed ensemble singing as both artistic training and community-building.

Dr. Cox’s writing for men’s voices demonstrates how varied that repertoire can be. His catalog includes the unaccompanied Prayers of Kierkegaard, which sets words drawn from Søren Kierkegaard’s writings of 1847–1855. At the other end of the spectrum is Hem and Haw, a setting of a text by Canadian poet Bliss Carman for men’s chorus, piano, four trombones, and tuba. Written for the Bowling Green State University Men’s Chorus and its director, William Skoog, the work reveals a composer willing to match an unconventional text with an equally distinctive instrumental personality.

His music also reaches the youngest performers. Colors is scored for unison children’s voices and piano, while his broader choral catalog includes music for treble ensembles, mixed choirs, men’s choruses, soloists, congregations, and singers of varying experience levels. Dr. Cox’s website lists more than 150 choral works, with titles ranging from familiar hymn settings and biblical texts to pieces such as A Hindoo Fable, The Prayer of the Cricket, The Bear, and The Flea. The variety suggests a composer who remains attentive not only to different voices, but also to different moods, personalities, and occasions.

Dr. Cox’s instrumental catalog is similarly diverse. It includes music for brass, strings, woodwinds, handbells, chamber groups, and combinations that are less frequently encountered. Among his works are a suite for woodwind quintet, a fugue for string quartet, a lament for clarinet and flute, processional music for strings and handbells, and a Toccata for Two Pianos and Percussion. His orchestral writing includes a concerto for two pianos and orchestra, an essay for orchestra, and symphonic treatments of familiar hymn tunes.

One of his important early large works at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was the Magnificat. Written in eight movements for divided choir, four vocal soloists, and orchestra, the composition sets Mary’s song from the Gospel of Luke. It received its premiere on May 3, 1993, performed by the Southwestern Seminary Oratorio Chorus with soloists Lynda Poston-Smith, Angela Cofer, Jack Coldiron, and David Robinson. The work illustrates Dr. Cox’s ability to shape a familiar sacred text across a substantial musical span while writing for the particular singers and institution that would present it.

Another major composition, Symphonic Psalms, brought his musical life back to Oklahoma Baptist University. The eight-movement work uses texts from Psalms 8, 23, 47, 90, 95, 103, 117, and 148, unified by the celebratory spirit of Psalm 100. Its musical language ranges from the stately and hymn-like to the rhythmically animated. The work was commissioned by Scott Oyer, a former student of Dr. Cox and a former member of the Bison Glee Club, and was presented as OBU’s 2004 Oratorio Project. The performance brought together university choirs, instrumental students, faculty musicians, and members of the Shawnee community, allowing a new generation to perform music written by one of the university’s former professors.

In 1990, Dr. Cox moved to Fort Worth to become Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s School of Church Music. He remained on the faculty until his retirement in 2009 and also directed the Southwestern Seminary Men’s Chorus. His work there enabled him to teach the architecture of music while remaining actively involved with the singers, conductors, and church musicians who would use that knowledge in performance and ministry.

His professional life in North Texas has extended into the wider musical community. Dr. Cox has appeared as a guest conductor with the Fort Worth Civic Orchestra and the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Irving, and he has traveled extensively to lead choral clinics. His conducting background also includes Oklahoma Baptist University’s annual Concerto-Aria Competition, in which OBU students performed with musicians from the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. These experiences have given him firsthand knowledge of performers at many stages—from university students encountering major repertoire to experienced community and professional musicians.

In 1995, Dr. Cox was selected as the commissioned composer of the Texas Music Teachers Association. The TMTA commissioning program exists to encourage the creation and performance of new American music, with the selected composition receiving its premiere at the association’s annual convention before being considered for national recognition through the Music Teachers National Association. Dr. Cox’s selection placed him among a distinguished succession of Texas composers supported by the program.

Dr. Cox has received the ASCAP Standard Award annually since 1987 and has continued to receive commissions and requests for choral and instrumental church music. Yet awards and publication numbers tell only part of his story. His work is distinguished by its responsiveness: to a sacred text, a particular ensemble, an anniversary, a congregation, a former student, or an unusual collection of instruments.

Whether writing an a cappella prayer for men’s voices, a colorful piece for children, a concerto for two pianists, or a large work for chorus and orchestra, Dr. Cox approaches each project with the same combination of imagination and craftsmanship. His career demonstrates that versatility is not simply the ability to write in many forms. It is the ability to listen carefully to what each performer, text, and occasion is asking the music to become.