David R. Davidson, director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Chorus, died September 5, 2009 in Dallas, Texas, at the age of 60. A native of Hamilton County, Ohio, he held degrees in piano performance and music education from the University of Cincinnati, where he also did graduate study in choral conducting. After working as a public school teacher and church musician in Cincinnati, Davidson served as minister of music at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas 1985–2003, when he moved to Highland Park United Methodist Church. Starting in 1993, he prepared the Dallas Symphony Chorus for many concerts and recordings. Davidson also was founder of the professional Dallas Handbell Ensemble and served as an adjunct instructor in choral conducting at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Survivors include his wife, Judith Anne Davidson, son, daughter, mother, two brothers, two sisters, and two grandchildren. A funeral was held at Highland Park United Methodist Church.
Jerald Hamilton died November 1, 2009, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Born March 19, 1927, in Wichita, Kansas, he was a graduate of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and served on the faculties of Washburn University of Topeka, Kansas; Ohio University, Athens; the University of Texas, Austin; and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from which he retired in 1988 as Professor Emeritus of Music.
In 1942 he began a long career in church music as organist of the First Presbyterian Church in Wichita and later as organist of the First Methodist Church in Lawrence; subsequent positions included Grace Episcopal Cathedral, Topeka; St. David’s Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas; the Chapel of St. John the Divine, Champaign, Illinois; and the Cathedral Church of St. John, Albuquerque, from which he retired in 1993 as Organist-Choirmaster Emeritus.
Post-graduate study was at the Royal School of Church Music, Croydon, England, and the School of Sacred Music of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Organ study in the U.S. was with Susie Ballinger Newman, Laurel Everette Anderson, and Catharine Crozier. Additional study was with Gustav Leonhardt, and as a Fulbright scholar in Paris with André Marchal. While in Paris he was accompanist for the Choeur Philharmonique de Paris, supply organist for the Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the British Embassy Church, and the American Church in Paris.
He served as member and sometime chairman of diocesan music commissions in the Episcopal Dioceses of Kansas and Illinois, was a long-time member of the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Anglican Musicians, and for thirty years toured as a concert organist first with the Colbert-LaBerge (later the Lilian Murtagh) management, Karen McFarlane Artists, and finally with the Phyllis Stringham management. Together with his wife, he served in retirement as a reader for disabled students at the University of New Mexico. Jerald Hamilton is survived by his wife, Phyllis Searle Hamilton, three daughters, a grandson, and many nieces and nephews.
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