About me
Donté Alexander Ford is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is best described as a musician, minister, and scholar. His many musical talents have afforded him the opportunity to serve as guest clinician/conductor, lead pianist, opera chorister, resident percussionist, and Minister of Music. His musical activities also include composing, specifically focusing on arrangements of Christian hymns and Negro Spirituals. A Christian minister, Donté is a gifted preacher, holding ordination and ministerial credentials in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Though a life-long Pentecostal, Donté is committed to the diversity of the body of Christ. As a scholar, Donté focuses his efforts on the history and preservation of Black American concert, popular, and sacred music, church hymnody, congregational song, and the history, theology, and music of African American Holiness and Pentecostal movements. His scholarly work includes lectures on African American choral art forms and contributions to the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology and UM Discipleship Ministries’ History of Hymns. Currently, he is a 2024 recipient of the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Teacher-Scholar Grant awarded by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship to continue his work on the hymnody of Bishop Charles Price Jones.
