DWIGHT ANDREWS is Professor of Music Theory and African American Music at Emory University and pastor of First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Atlanta. Ordained into Christian Ministry in 1978, he holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the Yale Divinity School, and a PhD in Music Theory from Yale University. He has served as Pastor of First Church since 1999 and under his leadership he helped to bring about the restoration, renovation, and expansion of the historic church and its campus. A scholar as well as an artist, he was awarded a Hutchins Research Fellowship at Harvard University for 2021-22, he was just named a recipient of the 2023 Governor’s Award in the Arts and Humanities in Georgia. A multi-instrumentalist, Andrews has appeared on over twenty-five jazz and ‘new music’ recordings and been recognized for his collaborations with playwright August Wilson.
He served as musical director for the Broadway productions of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, and Seven Guitars. Other theater credits include the Broadway revivals of A Raisin in the Sun with P Diddy, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom with Whoopi Goldberg. His most recent theater credit is the Broadway production of Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders featuring Audra McDonald. He has provided music for the dramatic works of Athol Fugard, Wole Soyinka, and Pearl Cleage. His film credits include The Old Settler, The Piano Lesson, and Miss Evers’ Boys. A recipient of the Alliance Theater’s Reiser Fellowship, Andrews is currently developing a chamber opera on W.E.B. Du Bois with noted filmmaker and MacArthur fellow, Louis Massiah. He is also completing a monograph on the intersection between spirituality and jazz.