NEW YORK CITY — Buryl Red, a renowned composer, conductor, producer and arranger known around the world as musical director of The CenturyMen and composer of the 1972 classic Celebrate Life, died April 1 after a battle with cancer.
A graduate of Baylor and Yale universities and born in Little Rock, Ark., Red, 77, wrote more than 1,600 published compositions and arrangements, many of them award-winning.
He produced more than 2,500 recordings and arranged music for hundreds of shows, documentaries and musical specials for network and cable television. The Washington Post described his works as “uncommonly creative.”
In 1969, the Radio and Television Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention established The CenturyMen, an auditioned men’s chorus of professional musicians who are directors of music in Baptist churches across America and from around the world. With Red as conductor, the group has performed on national television, been finalists for Dove and Grammy Awards and traveled around the world. There are currently four CenturyMen in Alabama: Bill Mallory, Don Lingle, Walter Rogers and Joe Hopkins.
In 1972, Red wrote music for “Celebrate Life,” a collaboration with book and lyrics author Ragan Courtney, published by Broadman Press, that became a staple in Southern Baptist youth choirs. The song “In Remembrance,” published in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal, is from the musical.
Greg Stahl, executive director of The CenturyMen, described Red as a “true giant” among Baptist church musicians that he puts in the same category with Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby and B.B. McKinney.
Stahl, associate pastor for worship and music at River Oaks Baptist Church, Houston, said with all the changes that have occurred in church music over the past 10 to 15 years, “I wonder if we will ever see another Buryl Red.”
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