Fernando Berwig
Graduate Candidate in Religion and Culture
Fernando Berwig Silva is a Ph.D. candidate in Religion and Culture at 无码专区 and a Brazilian composer. A drummer since his teenage years, he earned a Master of Sacred Music from Perkins School of Theology and a bachelor’s degree in composition and conducting from Paraná State University in Brazil. He has led music in churches across diverse cultural contexts and served for three years as Coordinator of Arts Ministries at a Lutheran church in Brazil. His compositions, which often explore the intersections of church and concert music, have been premiered in Europe, the United States, and Brazil.
Currently, Fernando teaches as adjunct faculty in the Perkins School of Theology and serves on the committee for the Christian Congregational Music Conference, held biennially in Oxford, UK. His research brings religious music into dialogue with decolonial and Latin American scholarship. His dissertation examines how the Contemporary Praise and Worship industry shapes Latin American identities and worship practices, using decolonial thought to explore the ways its practices both reinforce and disrupt coloniality.
Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Marcell Silva Steuernagel
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Journals:
“The Sacred World of Futebol: Learning from a Brazilian Secular Liturgy.” Studia Liturgica (2026), 00393207251415204. .
“Sounds Like Saudade: Eschatological Echoes in Brazilian Gospel Music,” Yale Music and Religion, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2025): “The Power of Timbre in Religion,” 17–34.
“Appropriation or Solidarity? Investigating Transnational Latine Church Music Practices.” The Hymn 76, no. 2 (2025): 18–25.
Fernando Berwig Silva, Marcell Silva Steuernagel, and Mykayla and Turner. “‘The Work of Diversity’: Ethnoraciality, Identity, and Music in Christian Worship.” Liturgy 40 (1): 35–61. , 2025.
“The Brazilian Hymnological Melting Pot: Investigating Ethnoracial Discourses in the Compilation of the Lutheran Hymnal Livro de Canto (2017),” Religions vol. 15, no. 5: 620, special issue: Race, Religion, and Nationalism in the 21st Century. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050620, 2024.
Book Reviews:
“Cool Christianity: Hillsong and the Fashioning of Cosmopolitan Identities.” Yale Journal of Music & Religion 12, no. 1 (2026). https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1366.
Hymnals:
Livro de Canto: Soli Deo Gloria (2017). Score editor. Editora Sinoadal, São Leopoldo, RS, Brazil.
Hymns:
"God Weeps" (2023), edited by J.R. Watson, The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology.
"This Little Light of Mine" (2023), written with Mykayla Turner, edited by C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, United Methodist Discipleship Ministries, .
Selected Premiered Compositions:
"A Mass for the Missing" (2023), Choir SAB, Handbells, Piano, Organ, and Cello, Perkins Chapel, Dallas, Texas. .
"Three Meditations on Christ’s Crucifixion" (2022), Piano, Perkins Chapel, Dallas, Texas, .
"PATER NOSTER" (2019), String Quartet, National Academy of Music "Prof. Pantcho Vladigerov," Sofia, Bulgaria.
"Jó Consolado" (2018), Orchestra and Choir SATB, Catedral Metropolitana de Curitiba, Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil.
Other Works in Progress:
Peer-Review Article: “Bad Bunny’s ‘Una Velita:’ Contemporary Expressions of Liberation Hymnody,” manuscript submitted to Perspectivas in August, 2025, accepted and under editorial revisions.
Peer-Review Article: “The Limitations of ‘Inculturation,’ ‘Music Localization,’ and ‘Contextualization’ in a Deterritorialized World,” manuscript submitted to Religions in September 2026, as part of the Special Issue "Performing Faith: Worship, Ritual, and Intercultural Dialogue".
Translation of Peer-Review Article: Marcell Silva Steuernagel. “Composition in Context: Musical Creation and Liturgical-Congregational Expectations,” manuscript submitted to Concordia Journal in July 2026, accepted and under editorial revisions.
Presentations:
“Sacrotechnotimbre and the Sound of the Future: Contemporary Praise and Worship Music and the Colonial Ear in Brazil,” at the Religion and Music Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado (forthcoming).
“Away with the Land: Timbre, Deterritorialization, and the Colonial Ear,” at the Conference on Contemporary Praise and Worship Music, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee.
“CPWM and the Far-Right in Brazil: Hillsong within Authoritarian Christian Contexts,” at the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Chicago, Illinois.
“Antropofagia and Musicoloniality: Worship, Power, and the Brazilian Gospel Soundscape,” at the World Christianity Conference, Recife, Brazil.
"Liturgy as Protest. Protest as Liturgy.” at the Liturgy, Song, and Theology Exploratory Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2025, Boston, Massachusetts (Forthcoming).
"Contemporary Expressions of Liberation Hymnody: Bad Bunny’s ‘Una Velita,’”August 2025, at the Christian Congregational Music Conference, Oxford, UK.
"Around the Table: Performance and Liturgical Space and the (non)Inclusion of Community," July 2025, at the Societas Liturgica, Paris, France.
"Brazilian Temples: Exploring sacredness through music in Churches and Stadiums," July 2025, at the Societas Liturgica, Paris, France.
"Songs of Liberation: Cuban Church Music and the Decolonial Reimagining of Theological Epistemology," May 2025, at the Annual Gathering of the International Ecclesiology & Ethnography Network, Toronto, Canada.
"Indigenismo in Twentieth-Century Peruvian Hymnological Literature," April 2025, at the Society for Ethnomusicology Southern Plains Chapter Spring Meeting, virtually at the University of Houston.
Avant-Garde Liberationist Music: A Lutheran Brazilian Perspective on Liturgical Musical Composition," May 2025, at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Nashville, Tennessee.
"Indigenismo and Church Music: Retracing Vatican Second’s Latin American Influences," November 2024, at the Religions in the Latina/o Americas Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, California.
"Singing Peace to Violence," November 2024, at the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, California.
"'Appropriate or Solidarity?' Investigating Transnational Latine Church Music Practices" July 2024, in the Emerging Scholars Forum, at the Hymn Society in Canada and the United States Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.
"Black, White, Latinx: Ethnoracial and Ecclesiological Divides in Worship Practices of DFW Churches" April 2024, at the Annual Gathering of the International Ecclesiology & Ethnography Network, Atlanta, Georgia.
"The Brazilian Hymnological Melting-Pot: A Closer Look at the Brazilian Lutheran Hymnal" March 2024, at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music, Wheaton, Illinois.
"Futebol, My Religion" October 2023, at the Society for Ethnomusicology 2023 Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada.
"The Sacred World of Futebol" August 2023, at the Christian Congregational Music Conference, Oxford, UK.
"Black, White, Latinx: Racial Divides in Worship Practices" July 2023, with Marcell Silva Steuernagel and Mykayla Turner, at the Hymn Society in Canada and the United States Conference, Toronto, Canada.
"The Incarnation of the Sacred Spirit in John Tavener’s Music," October 2017, 3rd Annual Meeting of Scientific Initiation of UNESPAR, Campo Mourão/PR, Brasil.
Fellowships and Awards:
2026 Lily/Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellowship
2026 无码专区 Provost’s Summer Research Grant
2025 无码专区 Outstanding Graduate Student Instruction Award
2025 McElrath-Eskew Research Award
2025 Royal Brougham Scholarship Award
2024 The Hymn Society Emerging Scholar
2023-2024 and 2024-2025 Hispanic Theological Initiative En Conjunto Fellowship
2023 Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society
2023 St. Paul's Foundation Scholarship
2023 March of Remembrance Honorable Scholarship
2022 and 2023 Roger Daschner Prize in Sacred Music
2022 Ed E. and Gladys Hurley Foundation
