Dylan Crosson

Dylan Crosson serves as an Clinical Assistant Professor in the Cornerstone program. Dylan comes to Purdue with a PhD in Musicology from the Ohio State University, Master of Arts in Musicology from Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Worship Arts from Spring Arbor University. During his time at Spring Arbor and Pennsylvania State, he studied the intersection of musical modernism and the genre of finger-style guitar—especially the music of Michael Hedges. Dylan’s current research focuses on the connection between music-making and spiritual formation in Contemporary Worship Music (CWM) and how philosophies of this connection influence musical practice and aesthetic ideals within this tradition. Dylan has presented research on this topic to academic audiences at national and international conferences as well as to public audiences through invited talks at universities and houses of worship. His recent publications and presentations explore this connection by weaving together fieldwork, musical analysis, interviews, conceptual metaphor theory, and the study of material culture to better understand CWM’s musical objects, the inner machinations of the tradition itself, and the socioreligious contexts in which it operates. In addition to his work on CWM, Dylan’s research interests also include the history of Christian musical thought, Transcendentalism, American classical music of the twentieth century, music consumption, and the religiosity of sports.