“I don’t mind challenging my listeners at all,” Cody Curtis, associate professor of composition and theory at Union University, said. He was gesturing towards the five unwrapped CDs he had gifted me moments before. “All of these have songs on them that are hard to listen to to some degree, but that’s what art does; it gives you a little bit of a challenge, you have to lean into it, but hopefully the payoff is worth the amount of work that it takes to get into it.”
In 2012, Cody Curtis and his wife Melody arrived on campus at Union after having spent the previous three years in North Carolina while Cody pursued a Master’s degree. They met during their time as Union students from 2005-2009. Their return was a well-received calling from the Lord, as the two had fond and nostalgic feelings towards their alma mater.
Curtis began working as an assistant residence director for the men’s quads. At the same time, he began to pursue his doctorate in music composition and started in his role as an adjunct professor in Union’s music department.
“I got my doctorate with the hope that maybe one day a teaching position would open up,” Curtis said. “Union was always number one on my list, but I also was very aware that because Dan was here, he was great and there was no need to hire me.”
Dan Mussleman served on Union’s faculty starting in 2010 and became the acting chair of Union’s music department from 2016-2018. Mussleman taught composition and music theory during his time at Union, which was a one-man job at the time.
“I thought if something opens up, I’ll teach,” Curtis said. “It’s what I want to do. I love to teach, I love writing music, I love teaching others how to write music, so it seemed like the next step on my trajectory, but there was no clarity as to what would happen next.”
In May of 2017, Mussleman was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer. He received treatment while team-teaching with Curtis for the following year and a half before tragically passing away in November of 2018.
At that time, Curtis stepped in to take over the classes previously co-taught with Mussleman while the university began the search for someone with the same passion and conviction that Mussleman carried into his classroom. In 2019, Curtis would be presented with the opportunity to teach music composition full time.
“I’m very grateful for my job,” Curtis said. “But it would’ve been a much better situation if I didn’t have a job here and [Mussleman] was still teaching. But it was the Lord’s will to call Dan home.”
In 2012, the same year that the Curtis family began to reacclimate into life at Union, Curtis began to pursue an idea that would change his life forever.
“We did an album by ourselves called, ‘Slave Songs,’ and it’s hard to find for a reason,” Curtis said. “But if you have a vision for an album of a song, you’ve got to get it out there. If it’s not great it’s okay, because maybe it can lead to something else.”
The idea was called Psallos: “A movement sparked by a desire to glorify God and proclaim the gospel through adventurous, theologically rich music.”
As Curtis and I spoke about the humble beginnings of a soon-to-be massive project, he spun around in his chair to face the bookshelf on the back wall. He had multiple copies of every CD Psallos had produced to date, including the album which had been released the previous day.
With all five albums now laid out on the table, we began to discuss Romans, the debut album for Psallos’ believed purpose.
“We did some touring and concerts and right away we realized that we don’t like being in the limelight, we would rather be behind the scenes,” Curtis said. “And so that’s when we met the singers that you have probably heard, Thomas and Kelsie.”
Both Thomas Griffith and Kelsie Edgren were freshman at Union around the time that Curtis had the idea to set the book of Romans to music, an idea that would gain immense traction once complete.
“One night in God’s providence,” Curtis said, “Thomas and Kelsie were doing a benefit charity concert at a church here and they just so happened to be playing and singing together, and they sounded beautiful together. And I was like, ‘Okay, that’s it! Those are the vocalists I need.’”
Once the idea and logistics had been settled, Curtis began to consider how he would go about recording the album without a recording studio. A sly smile came across Curtis’ face as he explained how he planned to use his position as an assistant residence director to his advantage.
“I knew where the open dorms were and where all the mattresses were. The apartment above us was Watters 1, 408, and it was empty. So I collected mattresses from all across campus and I lined the walls with the mattresses and put a roof on it. I had one microphone, borrowed an audio interface from someone and an old, cheap laptop. Everybody except for one musician was a Union student, and we recorded their parts one by one to create this orchestral sound. We did that and released it in 2015 and didn’t know what would happen, but people responded well to it.”
All of the track titles have the scripture reference listed next to them, making scriptural referencing an easier and encouraged task for listeners.
Looking closely at the details found on each CD case, my eyes landed squarely on the listed production studio.
“Wait, Mattress Fort Studios?”
“Yes! And even my home studio now we call it Mattress Fort Studios 2.0 because we’re still using mattresses.”
Since the release of “Romans,” Curtis’ vision for Psallos has only grown larger. With four epistles including Romans, Hebrews, Jude and Philippians already having feature albums, Curtis plans to set all 21 New Testament epistles to music with sister-albums intended to convert the same theological themes found in each album towards more congregational style worship. The band’s most recent album, “A Sure Hope – Hymns of Romans” is the first of these sister albums to be released.
While discussing his favorite pair of Psallos songs, “The Old” and “The New,” Curtis explained how he doesn’t mind challenging his listeners. Some of these songs are difficult to listen to. However, that’s what art is supposed to do; It is supposed to challenge you. And if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.
This idea seems quite fitting to the theme of Curtis’ life thus far: challenging. But if you lean into it, you might notice the payoff is worth it. While Curtis’ path to teaching and composing music have both been long roads filled with confusion, roadblocks and even tragedy, what is left now is a student body’s admiration and a music career that has only scratched the surface of its brilliant potential.
As we talked, I noticed a framed colored sketch of a faceless family standing in front of an all-too-familiar Union dormitory.
“So is that it?” I asked.
Curtis confirmed that what I was looking at was a colorful sketch of him and his then three–person-family standing in front of Watters 1, 407 and 408 where he lived, began his career teaching at Union, lead as a residence director and of course, began what would turn into the ambitious and beautiful musical group, Psallos.
Check out the Psallos website here, at https://www.psallos.com/mission
