Bio for Tim Brace

Tim Brace was born in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Jesse Jones High School in Houston in 1969 and entered the University of Notre Dame, majoring in engineering. After two years, he dropped out of school and started a rock band (Circe) in Houston, playing lead guitar and writing many of the band's songs. In 1973 he entered the University of St. Thomas in Houston and majored in music performance on the classical guitar, studying with Wolfgang Justen. He also began composition study there with Tom Borling, and played in the university's Jazz Ensemble. The spring of 1977 was spent at the International Music Center in Vienna, Austria, studying 12-tone composition with Gunther Kahowez. While at St. Thomas, Tim participated in guitar master classes with Pepe Romero (twice) and Manuel Barrueco.

Tim graduated from St. Thomas with a B.M. in music performance and a B.A. in philosophy in 1978, receiving that university's music department's Outstanding Graduating Senior Award. He then entered graduate school at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, majoring in classical guitar performance (studying with George Sakellariou) with a minor in composition (with Jules Langert) and special studies in Early Music on the Baroque lute (with Catherine Liddell). After graduating with an M.M. in performance in 1981, Tim taught music history, music theory, guitar ensemble and "early music" at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and concertized in the Houston area on classical guitar and on baroque lute.

In 1985, he entered the doctoral program in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas, specializing in the music of China. In the spring of 1987, he was granted a teaching assistantship and for the next four years taught a course on the history of rock music to undergraduates at the University of Texas. In 1987, and again in 1989, Tim went to China to research Chinese music for his dissertation. His first publication appeared in the summer 1991 edition of the journal Asian Music. He has taught courses in World Music and Chinese Music at the University of Texas, and received his Ph.D. in the summer of 1992.

During this time, Tim also began conducting and writing for church choirs, as well as writing sacred songs for guitar and voice and arranging Christian hymns for solo classical guitar (see the recordings on this website). Tim is currently on the music staff at Trinity United Methodist Church in Austin. His steel string guitar is a Collings OM-2H, and his classical guitar was made in 1973 by Robert Ruck.

Tim has written or arranged more than 50 works for classical guitar, arranged or composed more than 30 anthems or preludes for church choir (or subsets of choir), and has written numerous vocal and instrumental descants and solos for church and secular performance. Scores for most of these pieces are available on this website. He has also recorded four CDs, all of which are available from this website, from cdbaby.com and Amazon.com, and from many online digital music services, including iTunes.

Tim currently lives in Austin, Texas, and makes his living as a Senior IT Manager for the Office of Admissions at the University of Texas. He also, from May of 1997 through May of 2003, served as a trustee for the Hays Consolidated Independent School District, and as president of the board of trustees from May 1999 through September 2002.

Email address: brace"at"magnoliaarts.com (replace "at" with @)

last updated April 2012