Robert A. Hobby

Robert A. Hobby is director of music at Trinity English Lutheran Church in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. There Hobby coordinates a comprehensive music program, playing organ for many of the worship services, overseeing the graded choral program, and managing the concert series. Hobby was drawn to music at a very early age. The son of a Lutheran pastor, he grew up in a church music environment and began playing the organ for services at age ten at his father’s church in Columbia City, Indiana. He received the BM (1985) in church music from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, and the MM (1987) in organ performance from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He counts Kirby Koriath, Donald Busarow, Craig Cramer, Paul Manz, Richard Hillert, and the English composer Andrew Carter as particularly influential in his professional development. He has over 150 compositions in print from numerous publishers. His music has been heard on nationally syndicated radio programs such as “The Lutheran Hour,” “Pipe Dreams,” and “Sing for Joy.” In 2006 he premiered his own first major work, The Good Shepherd, scored for tenor solo, adult and children’s choirs, and orchestra. Hobby is a member of a number of professional organizations and has held a variety of leadership positions. For several years he chaired “Young Lutherans Sing,” a national summer choral program for children, sponsored by the ALCM. In 1996 he designed and coordinated a hymn festival that was performed simultaneously at over one hundred sites around the United States and Canada to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the ALCM. He has also served as dean of the Ft. Wayne Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and as a member of the program committee for the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic. Robert and his wife, Jennifer, are the parents of three daughters: Hannah, Lydia, and Elizabeth.