Atlanta professor to direct music at 04 General Conference

NOTE: A photograph of the Rev. Barbara Day Miller will be available.

FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS) - The Rev. Barbara Day Miller, assistant dean of worship at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, has been named music director for the 2004 General Conference.

Day Miller, also lecturer of liturgical practices at the United Methodist-related theological school, was selected April 11 by the Commission on the General Conference, the churchwide panel that plans the denomination's top legislative gathering.

The General Conference, which meets every four years, is a two-week assembly of 1,000 delegates from around the world who gather to set church policies and make pronouncements on social and moral issues of the day. General Conference is the only organization that speaks for the United Methodist Church. The 2004 session will be April 26 to May 7 in Pittsburgh.

As music director, Day Miller will oversee liturgy and music throughout the assembly, including inviting choirs and worship groups from across the church to participate.

Day Miller, who was selected from 11 candidates, has been music coordinator of several regional, national and international United Methodist gatherings, including the international clergywomen's consultation held in January in San Diego. She was founding director of the North Georgia Conference Youth Choir, which performed at the 2000 General Conference, and is slated to lead worship at an international convocation of United Methodist deacons in March 2003.

She was a delegate to the 1996 General Conference and Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference, and represented the United Methodist Church as a delegate to the 1996 World Methodist Conference in Rio de Janeiro.

Day Miller has degrees from Illinois Wesleyan University and Candler School of Theology.

Another Atlanta area deacon, the Rev. Cynthia A. Wilson-Hollins of Ben Hill United Methodist Church, served as music director for the 2000 General Conference in Cleveland and co-director of music for the 1996 assembly in Denver.