Grammy Award Winning Singer and Theology Professor to be Keynote Speakers at Anaheim Event
Contact:
Kelly C. Martini, communications director/information officer,
United Methodist Women's Division
Press Room: 714-765-2098; Cell Phone: 610-996-2124; Office Phone: 212-870-3729
New York, NY, April 24 -- Music and theology will converge as Grammy Award-winning singer Emily Saliers of the folk-pop group Indigo Girls, joins her father Don E. Saliers of Candler School of Theology, as keynote speakers at the United Methodist Women's Assembly 2006 in Anaheim, Calif.
The Saliers will speak to approximately 8,000 United Methodist Women about music and spirituality, based on their book, "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live," on May 6 at 9:00 at the Anaheim Convention Center for their quadrennial Assembly.
Their invitation as speakers at the assembly has generated controversy due to Ms. Saliers' self-avowed sexual orientation. However, event organizers are standing firm that the father-daughter team was invited to speak because of their spiritual and theological understandings and their commitment to justice for women and children.
Emily Saliers is one-half of the duo Indigo Girls. Together, she and Amy Ray have a distinguished recording and touring career as musicians for 18 years. They have produced 14 records with a consistent social justice theme throughout their music. Many of their concerts and performances benefit work around the world.
A graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, Ms. Saliers recently completed an independent film score and plans work on a new music recording. The book co-written with her father is her first published book.
Rev. Saliers is the William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship at Emory University's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, where he also directs the Masters in Sacred Music Program. He taught at Yale Divinity School before moving to Atlanta in 1974. The author of a dozen books and over a hundred articles, he has lectured widely across the ecumenical church. Rev. Saliers, who has contributed to the development of worship for the United Methodist Church for nearly 40 years, is President of the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. An active composer, he has served as organist/choirmaster at Chandler's Cannon Chapel for over 25 years.
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