Mourning the loss of Jeffery Rowthorn, one of ISM’s founding faculty members

The ISM community was deeply saddened to learn of the death of The Right Reverend Jeffery Rowthorn on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. Jeffery was one of the four pioneering people who moved from the shuttered Union School of Sacred Music in New York City to found the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in 1973. Along with Robert Baker (professor of organ and the ISM’s first director), Richard French (professor of music history), and Mina Belle Packer (later Wichmann, who was ISM’s first administrator), Jeffery was a significant and much-loved member of the ISM community for a half century. He was also Yale’s first faculty member in liturgical studies. He died nearly two years to the day after his wife, Anne, who also dearly loved at the ISM. Jeffery was 91 years old.

Jeffery retired in 2001 as Bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, after which point, he and Anne moved back to their family home in Connecticut. From there, they maintained an active life of service, speaking, liturgical leadership, writing, and other creative work, much of which they did together. 

ISM director Martin Jean said, “For me, this is a profound moment as it feels like a severing from our original founders, as well as our benefactors, the late Clementine Tangeman and J. Irwin Miller. I give thanks for all these people, for their vision, energy, and generosity. I give thanks for Jeffery who was a model of industry in his later years. He and Anne, when they still lived in New Haven, were voluntary attenders at the ISM Colloquium each Wednesday afternoon as well as at numerous events and concerts. Together, they compiled a voluminous resource called “God’s Good Earth: Praise and Prayer for Creation” which gathered multiple spiritual voices for worship to lift up the goodness of creation and our responsibility for its care. Jeffery wrote many dozens of hymns that are found in hymnals all over the world in numerous languages only some of which are recorded here. For my part, Jeffery was a valued advisor and confidante as I strove to understand the history of the ISM and keep to the original intentions of its founding. Likewise, he was an avid cheerleader for the ways the ISM has diversified and grown. I will miss his sage wisdom and kindness.”

Read Jeffery’s full obituary here. 

Read a 2021 article in which Jeffery and Anne Rowthorn reminisce about their lives, including their time at the ISM.

The funeral will be held at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, CT on Saturday, August 9 at 11 a.m.