Austin Cole Lovelace

Austin Cole Lovelace was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, in 1919 and died in 2010. He earned an A.B. from High Point College in 1939 and the M.S.M. and D.S.M. degrees from Union Theological Seminary's School of Sacred Music in 1941 and 1950. A Methodist church musician whose appointments also included Presbyterian congregations, he worked as an organist, minister of music, teacher, lecturer, consultant, composer, and writer. He served at Union Theological Seminary and Garrett Theological Seminary and was organist for the 1954 Assembly of the World Council of Churches.

Lovelace produced hundreds of church compositions and wrote extensively about hymnody and worship. He was a past president and Fellow of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada and contributed to denominational hymnal work.

For All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord, Lovelace did not compose ARMENIA. He prepared the four-part harmonization dated 1963 that appears with Pond's melody in The United Methodist Hymnal. Hymnal documentation identifies the harmony as © 1964 Abingdon Press. This role must be distinguished from Pond's nineteenth-century composition, and the harmonization must not be treated as public domain merely because Wesley's text and Pond's melody are public domain.