Jayne Southwick Cool is a poet and composer/arranger of hymns, work for brass, woodwinds, handbells, organ, piano, and adult and children's choirs.  She is retired from the position of Director of Music at Bethel Lutheran Church in Middleburg Heights, OH where she served as organist and choir director for fifteen years and worked in the children's music ministry for over twenty-five years. She has taught classroom music and directed bands and choirs in both public and parochial schools.  She served on the Worship Committee of The Northeastern Ohio Synod of the ELCA for six years and was a private instructor on French Horn for many years. 

Jayne is published by Augsburg Fortress, Choristers Guild, Concordia, G.I.A., Hope, MorningStar, Selah, and Wayne Leupold Editions Inc.  She is a contributor to Evangelical Lutheran Worship and fourteen of her hymn arrangements are found in its companion volumes, “Introductions and Alternate Accompaniments for Organ”.   Four of her organ Introductions and Accompaniments appear in Pull Out the Stops, Vol 3.  Her tunes are also included in All Creation Sings, At Your Altars: Chants, Refrains, and Short Songs, Community of Christ Sings, Supplement 96(Hope), and in her own collection of hymns and tunes, Praise the Lord of Heaven. Jayne collaborated with Garcia Grindal in composing the tunes for her "Texts of Lectionary Hymns Series C, a Treasury of Faith series by WLE. 

Jayne’s hymns, tunes, and arrangements have been selected as winners in competitions, including those sponsored by Hymn Society in the United States and Canada; The Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts, in collaboration with the Fred Bock Institute of Music; Macalester Plymouth UNited Church, and Fairmount Presbyterian Church.  As a text writer she won the Diane and Paul Jacobson Prize as part of the Martin Luther Hymn Prize sponsored by LutheranArts.  Two of her Scripture songs appear on the CD “God Is Watching”, a Faith Stepping Stone resource of the Faith Inkubators Music Guild.  Jayne was recognized at a choral celebration of women hymn authors and composers who have influenced church history by the Elizabethtown (KY) Area Sacred Community Choir.  A number of her compositions have been commissioned by churches, schools, and music organizations.

Jayne has contributed several articles to the Choristers Guild journal, “The Chorister” and has been featured in an interview published in In Tempo, the practical, member-focused magazine of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.  She has been a guest conductor/clinician at the children’s choir festivals in OH, PA, and VA.  A life member of the Hymn Society, she has served as a conference presenter, and has also been a clinician for conferences of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, The Fellowship of the United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts, and The Ohio District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.   

Jayne lives in Mason, Ohio and has 2 married children and five grandchildren.