August 31, 2010

Randall Giles, composer, ethnomusicologist, and an Episcopal Church missionary in India, died Aug. 27 at a hospital in Pondicherry following a brief illness and a heart attack. He was 60.

Since July 2000, Giles had been serving as director of the Institute for Indian Christianity and the Arts, a center that he helped to found.

Based in Chennai, India, Giles "shared his love for music and liturgy in India and other parts of Asia" as a missionary of the Episcopal Church from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts for more than 10 years, explained the Rev. David Copley, mission personnel officer for the Episcopal Church.

Copley described Giles as "a faithful servant and a passionate musician [who] will be missed by all those whom he touched throughout his ministry."

Giles was involved in a project for the Episcopal Church's former department of Anglican and Global Relations to record music from various provinces of the Anglican Communion. Titled "Throughout All the World," the series explored little-known Anglican music from places such as south India and the Church of Melanesia (in the Solomon Islands).

His ministry "was broad and eclectic, ranging from running workshops for musicians, developing music for vacation Bible school programs, recording and documenting traditional music to supporting the development of liturgy and music," Copley said.

As a composer, Giles worked in many styles and idioms. Among his published works are more than 40 carols, motets, anthems and other choral pieces. Other compositions include instrumental works and music for theater, film, and television.

Giles enjoyed singing, and playing the violin and piano.

Until his death, he had been serving as director of the Department of Music and Liturgy for the Church of South India's Madras diocese, teaching privately and doing voice-overs for the Indian film industry, according to his website.

Giles was born in Oregon City in 1950. His first studies in composition were with Mark DeVoto at Reed College, after which he earned his undergraduate degree at the University of York while studying with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in London.

He taught in the United Kingdom for two years, after which he returned to the United States to further his studies and to teach.

He traveled to Liberia with the United States Peace Corps to help develop a music curriculum based on Liberian indigenous music for the Ministry of Education there. That was followed by a year with the Alaska State Council on the Arts, recording the music of four small rural villages during an Artists in the Schools residency. He subsequently returned to the U.K. to study with Sir Harrison Birtwistle and headed the music department at Queen's College, London. He earned a master's degree at Northwestern University studying with Alan Stout, after which he taught on the music faculties of Lewis and Clark, Marylhurst and Linfield colleges in Oregon.

In 1991, Giles traveled to Madras (now Chennai), South India, where he was a visiting scholar at Saint George's School, while beginning the writing of his Saint John Passion. That work was presented for his dissertation at the University of California, San Diego, where in 1992 Giles received a Doctor of Philosophy in Music degree.

In 1993-1994, he returned to south Asia as a volunteer at a small school in Nepal, and to continue his study of liturgy and enculturation in the churches of South Asia. In 1999, he was invited to serve the Church of South India's Diocese of Madras, to do parish-based work in music, and to work towards the founding of the center for Indian Christianity and the Arts.

Giles is survived by his mother and a sister.

Episcopal News Service