"A Celebration of Christian Unity: God has made of one blood all peoples of the Earth," the 2001 Festival, is co-sponsored by the College's Music Department and Campus Christian Center.

Admission is free and open to the public.

The hymn festival is the culmination of a short-term course on hymnology taught by Bolster and Courter during the month of January. Congregational hymn singing will be the central activity of this special service that will feature class members as singers, instrumentalists, readers, and as hymn writers and composers.

The hymns selected for the festival will span several centuries and include Hymns sung in a variety of styles. Both new and familiar hymns will be included along with information about the hymn texts, tunes and their respective authors and composers. All of the hymns will relate to the central theme of the festival, "A Celebration of Christian Unity: God has made of one blood all peoples of the Earth."

"God has made of one blood all peoples of the Earth," is also Berea College's motto. Hymns from various cultures and nations about unity in Christ and the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind have been selected to express the motto's central message, the kinship of all people.

Stephen Bolster will conduct the festival. John Courter, who supervised musical arrangements and student hymn composition during the course, will provide organ music and organ accompaniment to many of the hymns.

The 2001 Hymn Festival is the sixth in a series of Hymn Festivals designed by Bolster, Courter and their students over the past two decades.