Marty Haugen, (born December 30, 1950 in Wanamingo, Minnesota), is an American composer of liturgical music.
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Marty Haugen was raised in the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in Minnesota, and also writes contemporary hymns and liturgies for the Lutheran church despite being a member the United Church of Christ. Despite being a non-Catholic, his music has found favor in the both liberal Roman Catholic and Protestant congregations. Haugen holds a B.A. degree in psychology from Luther College and an M.A. degree in Pastoral Studies from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. For the past 25 years Haugen has pursued a career as a liturgical composer and workshop presenter.
The majority of his compositions are published by GIA Publications, Inc.. His best-known works are two Lutheran liturgies, Holden Evening Prayer and Now the Feast and Celebration, and settings of the Catholic mass, the most widely-know being the Mass of Creation. He has also composed dozens of other works, including liturgy settings, choral arrangements, sacred songs, and hymns, including Here in this Place (Gather Us In), Canticle of the Sun, We Are Many Parts, We Remember, and Shepherd Me, O God, as well as several psalm settings and paraphrases.
Haugen is a performing musician, and has recorded a number of CDs. He holds a position as composer in residence at Mayflower Community Congregational Church (UCC) in Minneapolis.
Following the movement that began with the St. Louis Jesuits in the 1970s and 1980s, Marty Haugen, together with David Haas, became some of the most prolific composers of contemporary Catholic liturgical music during the period of rapid liturgical change following Vatican II. Their hymns, songs, and liturgy make up a good deal of the contents of the GIA Gather hymnals, and are widely published in other hymnals used by the Catholic Church in the United States. Haugen's Mass of Creation has become one of the most widely used settings of the mass throughout the English speaking world.
Because Haugen and Haas have become synonymous with this style of music, their names are often mentioned in criticism of liturgical use of music of this style. One of the main criticisms is that the musical style is similar to that used for children's musicals, thus trivialising the mood and feel of the liturgical celebration and betraying 1960s-era folk music stylings that sound dated to critics.
Haugen has written several liturgies for the ELCA. These include Now the Feast and Celebration, (written in collaboration with then campus pastors at Pacific Lutheran University Susan Briehl, Dan Erlander and Martin Wells), Unfailing Light, an evening communion service written in collaboration with Pastor Susan Briehl, "Setting Two" for the Evangelical Lutheran Worship Book (ELW), and an evening prayer service, Holden Evening Prayer, originally written for Holden Village. These liturgies have been published in various forms, with some of them appearing in the ELCA hymnal supplement With One Voice and the newest hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006).