Nym Cooke: Independent Scholar

“I love New England's early sacred music, and have studied it intensively for over 50 years.” 

That love and study have produced: 

  • a doctoral dissertation (University of Michigan, 1990) titled "American Psalmodists in Contact and Collaboration, 1770-1820";

  • an edition of the complete music of Timothy Swan (1758-1842), published by A-R Editions in 1997;

  • American Harmony (2017), a tunebook containing the 176 pieces I feel are among the finest from early America, with copious annotations and composer biographies;

  • a website, Early American Sacred Music, currently containing data on over 13,500 pieces in manuscript in over 2,750 sources held by 31 different libraries, and extensive transcriptions from 300 New England town histories; and

  • a number of scholarly articles on subjects such as William Billings's only known letter, itinerant singing masters, opposition to the bass viol in New England's meetinghouses, late 18th-/early 19th-century New England as a kind of laboratory for musical experimentation, and Justin Hitchcock (1752-1822) of Deerfield, Massachusetts.

An illustration of an ornate, classical-style concert hall with multiple balconies and rows of windows. Overlaid on the scene is a decorative musical score and text that reads: "Select Passongs Containing the Necessary Rules of Harmony, Together with a collection of approved Psalm Tunes, Hymns and Anthems by Oliver Brown." The scene is highly detailed with intricate woodwork and architectural features from the 18th century.