Mildred Kathryn Artz Wiant
1898 - 2001
Methodist Episcopal
Biography
Mildred Kathryn Artz Wiant (1898–2001) was an American Methodist missionary, singer, voice teacher, music educator, and hymn translator whose work helped English-speaking churches encounter Chinese Christian song. Born in Lancaster, Ohio, she graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1920. She married Bliss Mitchell Wiant in 1922, and the couple were appointed as Methodist Episcopal missionaries to China in 1923.
At Yenching University in Beijing, Mildred taught voice, gave recitals, and worked alongside Bliss as the university developed a substantial music program. During periods in the United States she taught vocal music at Scarritt College, and she later taught at Chung Chi College in Hong Kong. Her professional work joined performance and pedagogy with the practical task of making Chinese hymn texts singable in English.
Mildred and Bliss translated a significant body of Chinese Christian hymnody. Their English versions were part of a broader effort to present indigenous Chinese texts and tunes to churches outside China without replacing them with Western musical idioms. Hymnary indexes Mildred as translator or paraphraser of several Chinese hymns, including “Rise to Greet the Sun,” “Midnight Stars Make Bright the Sky,” and “O Christ, the Great Foundation.”
Her contribution is best understood as cross-cultural musical mediation. Rather than simply importing Western hymnody into China, she helped carry Chinese Christian poetry and song in the opposite direction, giving later English-language hymnals access to voices formed within Chinese churches and Christian universities.
At Yenching University in Beijing, Mildred taught voice, gave recitals, and worked alongside Bliss as the university developed a substantial music program. During periods in the United States she taught vocal music at Scarritt College, and she later taught at Chung Chi College in Hong Kong. Her professional work joined performance and pedagogy with the practical task of making Chinese hymn texts singable in English.
Mildred and Bliss translated a significant body of Chinese Christian hymnody. Their English versions were part of a broader effort to present indigenous Chinese texts and tunes to churches outside China without replacing them with Western musical idioms. Hymnary indexes Mildred as translator or paraphraser of several Chinese hymns, including “Rise to Greet the Sun,” “Midnight Stars Make Bright the Sky,” and “O Christ, the Great Foundation.”
Her contribution is best understood as cross-cultural musical mediation. Rather than simply importing Western hymnody into China, she helped carry Chinese Christian poetry and song in the opposite direction, giving later English-language hymnals access to voices formed within Chinese churches and Christian universities.
Hymns by Mildred Kathryn Artz Wiant
Rise to Greet the Sun
Role: Lyricist