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The American composer and arranger, Kurt Kaiser, studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and earned two degrees from Northwestern University.
Kurt Kaiser joined Word, Inc., in 1959 as director of artists and repertoire and later became vice president and director of music for Word. He has arranged and produced albums for many national and international gifted artists, among them Kathleen Battle, Diane Bish, Ernie Ford, Hale & Wilder, Larnelle Harris, Jerome Hines, Burl Ives, Ken Medema, Stephen Nielson, Christopher Parkening, George Beverly Shea, Joni Eareckson Tada, Ethel Waters, Anne Martindale Williams. He has appeared in concerts with George Beverly Shea for over twenty years. In addition, he conducts choral intensive workshops and performs solo concerts. Kaiser has recorded sixteen solo albums at the piano, and he received a Dove award for his piano album, "Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs," on the Sparrow label.
Kurt Kaiser's professional credentials are legendary in church music circles. For over forty years, he has influenced modern day church music and has helped usher in a new era in American Christian music. Crossing denominational boundaries, his compositions have found their way into many church hymnals. He has achieved subtle trend changes by maintaining sensitivity to music already widely accepted by the church, yet he has also managed to move into new and unexplored areas that have broadened the realm of worshipful, sacred music. The Lost Art of Listening project has been hailed as one of the finest recorded works available today.
During the past four decades Kurt Kaiser has copyrighted more than 200 songs, one of the latest being a Christmas piece, One Quiet Night, that was premiered by the Waco Symphony Orchestra in December 1999. Later that same month, Kurt was in Sweden at the request of the US Ambassador. He had been invited to perform at a gala Christmas gathering of guests and dignitaries at the prestigious Museum of History in Stockholm. Kurt arranged and prepared a variety of musical selections for the evening's performance, and shared the stage with a gifted soprano and a string quartet. Kurt described the warm, yet festive, atmosphere of the evening as, "Not like tinsel, but like candlelight - or the sparkle in someone's eye." Best known for the songs, Pass It On and Oh How He Loves You and Me, Kurt Kaiser continues to compose traditional church music. His timeless compositions have helped insure that music in its purest form will continue to be embraced in the American church worship experience.
In 1992 Kurt Kaiser was awarded a special Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for his contributions to the Christian music industry. In November 2001, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Association's Hall of Fame. He received an Honorary Doctor of Sacred Music degree from Trinity College in Illinois and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Baylor University in Waco. He recently served a term as President of the Waco Symphony Association. Kurt and his wife Pat reside in Waco, where they have lived since 1959. They have four grown children and nine grandchildren. |
