Lift Us Up – SATB – Soprano Solo

Taken from ‘Lift Us Up’, the Medium Adv Adult work for SATB is typical of Cox, Michael’s rhythmic drive. This is a great concert piece to perform for your next spring concert or in a sacred church setting.
About Dr. Michael Cox, Composer of Lift Us Up—HMC981

Dr. Michael Cox is an ASCAP award-winning American composer, conductor, pianist, and music educator whose career has brought together choral composition, sacred music, university teaching, ensemble leadership, and professional music engraving. His anthem Lift Us Up, HMC981, is written for SATB choir, featured high-voice or soprano solo, and keyboard accompaniment. Published by Hinshaw Music as part of the Hinshaw Sacred series, the work offers experienced adult choirs a substantial addition to their sacred choral repertoire.

The text for Lift Us Up was written by Paulann Canty, whose words also appear in other compositions by Michael Cox. The anthem was originally created for the Oklahoma Baptist University Bison Glee Club and soloist Allen Richard. That dedication places the piece within a real musical relationship rather than an imagined performance setting: Dr. Cox knew the ensemble, understood its tradition, and wrote with a particular solo voice in mind.

The published edition of Lift Us Up is scored for SATB chorus with a featured soprano solo and keyboard accompaniment. Hal Leonard classifies the anthem at a Medium Advanced Adult difficulty level, suggesting music intended for capable church, university, or community choirs seeking a rewarding challenge. The solo voice adds an individual presence within the larger choral texture, creating opportunities for contrast between personal expression and the collective sound of the ensemble.

That relationship between soloist and choir reflects Dr. Cox’s extensive experience as both a composer and conductor. He has spent much of his career working directly with singers, learning how individual voices function within an ensemble and how carefully shaped choral writing can support both musical expression and textual clarity. His compositions are informed not only by theoretical knowledge, but also by years of listening to singers in rehearsals, clinics, worship services, university concerts, and formal performances.

Oklahoma Baptist University holds a particularly important place in the story of Michael Cox and Lift Us Up. Dr. Cox earned his Bachelor of Music with honors in piano performance from OBU before returning to the university as a professor. He taught composition, conducting, music theory, and church music, bringing several complementary areas of musicianship into the classroom.

For 13 years, Dr. Cox also directed the Bison Glee Club. His years with the ensemble gave him firsthand experience teaching vocal technique, shaping choral tone, selecting repertoire, preparing concerts, and developing musicians through the shared discipline of ensemble singing. Lift Us Up grew directly from that chapter of his professional life, preserving a musical connection between the composer, the Bison Glee Club, and featured soloist Allen Richard.

Dr. Cox’s work at Oklahoma Baptist University extended beyond choral conducting. He led the university’s annual Concerto-Aria Competition, which featured OBU student soloists performing with members of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. The event allowed developing musicians to prepare major solo repertoire and experience the demands of performing with orchestral players. It also strengthened Dr. Cox’s understanding of the musical relationship between soloist, conductor, accompanist, and ensemble—a relationship that remains relevant in the design of Lift Us Up.

His connection to Oklahoma Baptist University continued long after he left the faculty. Dr. Cox’s eight-movement Symphonic Psalms was later presented by OBU as an Oratorio Project. Commissioned by former student and Bison Glee Club member Scott Oyer, the work reunited several strands of Dr. Cox’s career: his identity as a composer, his legacy as an educator, his history with the university, and his ability to write extended music for voices and instruments.

In 1990, Dr. Cox moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to join the School of Church Music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as Professor of Music Theory and Composition until his retirement in 2009. His teaching helped students examine how harmony, melody, rhythm, form, orchestration, and text work together to create a coherent musical statement.

Dr. Cox also served as director of the Southwestern Seminary Men’s Chorus. This continuing involvement in ensemble leadership allowed him to remain close to the practical realities of choral music while teaching its theoretical and compositional foundations. Conductors and composers must consider vocal range, tessitura, balance, diction, breath, accompaniment, rehearsal pacing, and the abilities of individual singers. Dr. Cox’s career has consistently placed him at the intersection of those concerns.

As a composer, Michael Cox has written hundreds of published works encompassing choral music, piano music, orchestral compositions, and instrumental repertoire. His sacred choral catalog includes music for SATB choir, treble voices, men’s ensembles, children, soloists, congregations, and varied instrumental accompaniments. He has received numerous commissions and requests for church choral and instrumental music, often writing for particular performers, ministries, institutions, or commemorative occasions.

This performer-centered approach is especially important when considering Lift Us Up. The anthem was not simply labeled for an anonymous SATB choir after it was completed. It originated through a specific ensemble and soloist with whom Dr. Cox had a direct musical relationship. That history gives the piece a personal dimension while its published form allows new choirs and soloists to make the music their own.

Dr. Cox’s broader choral catalog demonstrates his interest in many different texts, vocal colors, and performance settings. His music ranges from intimate prayers and hymn arrangements to major works for divided choir, vocal soloists, and orchestra. He has written unaccompanied music, keyboard-supported anthems, works with chamber instruments, and compositions requiring full orchestral forces. Within that broad catalog, Lift Us Up occupies a distinctive place as an SATB sacred anthem with a prominent solo voice and a direct connection to his years at Oklahoma Baptist University.

His formal musical education prepared him for this unusually varied career. In addition to his undergraduate degree in piano performance from Oklahoma Baptist University, Dr. Cox earned a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and a Doctor of Music in composition from Florida State University. These three disciplines gave him the perspectives of a performer, conductor, and composer.

His background as a pianist helps him understand how an accompaniment feels beneath the hands and how the keyboard can support singers without overwhelming them. His conducting experience allows him to anticipate the balance, pacing, and interpretive decisions an ensemble will encounter. His training as a composer provides the structural craft needed to bring text, voices, soloist, and accompaniment into a unified musical design.

Dr. Cox has also traveled extensively as a choral clinician, working with singers and conductors throughout the country. Choral clinics require a musician to evaluate an ensemble quickly, communicate clearly, and find practical ways to improve tone, phrasing, rhythm, diction, and expression. These experiences have further strengthened his understanding of what makes choral music effective for real performers.

After moving to Fort Worth, Dr. Cox appeared as a guest conductor with the Fort Worth Civic Orchestra and the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Irving. His work with choral and orchestral ensembles has allowed him to experience music from both sides of the conductor’s podium: as the composer who prepares the score and as the musician responsible for transforming notation into a living performance.

Dr. Cox’s compositions have received sustained recognition from the wider music profession. He has received the Standard Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers annually since 1987. He was also selected as the commissioned composer for the Texas Music Teachers Association Conference, an honor recognizing his contribution to the creation of new American music.

In addition to composing, teaching, conducting, and performing, Dr. Cox has worked as a professional music copyist and engraver. Music engraving involves far more than placing notes on a page. It requires close attention to notation, spacing, score order, text underlay, page turns, visual hierarchy, and the practical needs of performers. This work has given Dr. Cox an especially complete understanding of a composition’s journey from creative concept to readable printed score.

Today, Dr. Michael Cox serves as Composer-in-Residence at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth. The appointment continues his lifelong involvement with sacred music and worshiping communities. His work reflects a musician who understands that church choral repertoire must serve several purposes at once: it must honor its text, engage the singers, support the worship or concert setting, and communicate meaningfully with listeners.

Lift Us Up, HMC981, brings many parts of Michael Cox’s career together in a single SATB choral work. It features a text by Paulann Canty, a prominent high-voice or soprano solo, keyboard accompaniment, and mixed-voice choral writing. Its origin with the Oklahoma Baptist University Bison Glee Club and Allen Richard connects the anthem to Dr. Cox’s history as a university conductor and educator, while its publication by Hinshaw Music allows choirs far beyond OBU to continue that musical story.

For church choirs, university ensembles, and accomplished adult singers searching for Michael Cox choral music, sacred SATB repertoire, or an anthem featuring soprano solo and choir, Lift Us Up offers music shaped by genuine relationships and decades of practical experience. It stands as an example of Dr. Cox’s ability to write music that recognizes the individual singer while drawing that voice into the strength and expressive power of the full ensemble.