Monday, Feb 21, 2022
Brad Croushorn ’97 wrote the hymn text for ‘Open Wide the Doors’
Brad Croushorn ’97 won Duke University Chapel’s 2021 Hymn Competition for his hymn Open Wide the Doors. Croushorn’s hymn text was chosen from among 60 entries from three countries.
The hymn debuted as part of the Duke Chapel’s Sunday morning worship service with the Duke Chapel Choir and Chapel Organist Christopher Jacobson leading the congregation in singing it to the English tune RUSTINGTON.
A composer and vocalist based in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina, Croushorn is an associate editor of school choral publications at Alfred Music Publishing and minister of music and liturgy at All Saints’ United Methodist Church in Morrisville, North Carolina. He received a Master of Music in Sacred Music from Westminster Choir College
“As I see it, practicing compassion — for others and also for ourselves — is what creates an opening (‘doors’ and ‘windows’) to enter into an authentic connection with each other,” Croushorn says. “Practicing compassion illuminates our commonalities and brings us to the gentle understanding that indeed, God is in our midst. To me, it is the framework of living in the way of love. And this idea was running in my mind continually while writing Open Wide the Doors.”
He also participates in the local music scene through the NC Songwriters Co-op and Carolina Contemporary Composers. As a performer, he has sung in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and at Avery Fisher Hall in New York and multiple years at the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
As the winner of the competition, Croushorn will receive $1,500 and his hymn will be published by MorningStar Music/ECS Publishing Group in a collection of new and recent hymns from Duke Chapel.
The hymn competition was coordinated by Zebulon M. Highben, director of chapel music at Duke Chapel and associate professor of the practice of church music at Duke Divinity School.
“Open Wide the Doors will be a marvelous addition to the church's hymnody,” Highben says. “The text beautifully and succinctly addresses our contest's theme of compassion, as it calls us to open the doors of our hearts.”