Tim Brace – Music & Arts Director
Tim Brace was born in Houston, Texas. After toying with becoming an engineer while a student at the University of Notre Dame, Tim dropped out of college and started a rock band (Circe) in Houston, playing lead guitar and writing many of the band’s songs. In 1973 he decided to get serious about studying music, and entered the University of St. Thomas in Houston, majoring in music performance on the classical guitar under Wolfgang Justen. He also began composition study there with Tom Borling, and played in the university’s Jazz Ensemble. The spring of 1977 was spent at the International Music Center in Vienna, Austria, studying 12-tone composition with Gunther Kahowez. While at St. Thomas, Tim participated in guitar master classes with Pepe Romero (twice) and Manuel Barrueco.
Tim graduated from St. Thomas with a B.M. in music performance and a B.A. in philosophy in 1978, receiving that university’s music department’s Outstanding Graduating Senior Award. He entered graduate school at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, majoring in classical guitar performance (studying with George Sakellariou) with a minor in composition (with Jules Langert) and special studies in Early Music on the Baroque lute (with Catherine Liddell). After graduating with an M.M. in performance in 1981, Tim taught music history, music theory, guitar ensemble and “early music” at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and concertized in the Houston area on the classical guitar and the baroque lute, and played the oud on an album of Sephardic Folk Songs.
In 1985, he entered the doctoral program in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas, specializing in the music of China. Starting in the spring of 1987 and for the next four years, Tim taught a course on the history of rock music to undergraduates at the University of Texas. In 1987, and again in 1989, Tim went to China to research Chinese music for his dissertation. His first publication appeared in the summer 1991 edition of the journal Asian Music. He has taught courses in World Music and Chinese Music at the University of Texas, and received his Ph.D. in the summer of 1992.
Tim has written or arranged more than 50 works for classical guitar, arranged or composed more than 30 anthems or preludes for church choir (or subsets of choir), and has written numerous vocal and instrumental descants and solos for church and secular performance. Scores for most of these pieces are available on Tim’s website, http://www.magnoliaarts.com. He has also recorded four CDs, available from his website, from cdbaby.com and Amazon.com, and from many online digital music services, including iTunes.
Prior to arriving at Trinity UMC, Tim served as choir director at Buda UMC and as Music Director at Hyde Park UMC in Austin. Weekdays he works as a Senior IT Manager for Admissions at the University of Texas at Austin. From May of 1997 through May of 2003, Tim served as a trustee for the Hays Consolidated Independent School District, and as president of the board of trustees from May 1999 through September 2002.
Tim has been on staff at Trinity UMC since the summer of 2011.
