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The American composer, conductor, organist, preacher, and teacher, Tom Trenney, began piano study with Margaret Syroney at the age of four and began organ lessons with Anne Wilson at a Pipe Organ Encounter (POE) in 1991. He obtained his Bachelor of Music degree in Organ Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music (1999), where he studied organ and church music with Todd Wilson; and his Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting and Organ Performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (2002), studying organ performance with David Higgs and choral conducting with Dr. William Weinert. His teachers and mentors have also included Anton Armstrong, David Davidson, Craig Hella Johnson, (Mister) Fred Rogers, and Anne Wilson and, among others. He earned both the Service Playing and Colleague Certificates from the American Guild of Organists (AGO) before he was sixteen years old, becoming one of the youngest ever to do so. He has been awarded First Prize at several regional and national competitions, including the Redlands Organ Festival Competition, the San Marino Organ Competition, the John Rodland Memorial Church Music Scholarship Competition, and the AGO Region V Competition for Young Organists.
Tom Trenney shares his passion as pastoral musician, composer, and teacher in worship with his home congregation, in the college classroom, and in performances, hymn festivals, choral and organ workshops and master-classes all around the country. He was Director of Music Ministries and Organist at First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Michigan, where he directed an extensive program, including five choirs and the Birmingham-First Concert Series. Since 2009, he has been served as Minister of Music to First-Plymouth Church (United Church of Christ) in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he shepherds three adult choirs, accompanies the congregation on the Schoenstein organ, preaches sermons, and guides the Abendmusik at First-Plymouth Concert Series. In 2015-2016, three of First-Plymouth’s choirs were honored to perform at conventions of the Nebraska Choral Directors Association, the Nebraska Music Educators Association, and the North Central American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). In March 2017, First-Plymouth’s chamber choir, Cantorei, sang two worship services at the national ACDA convention in Minneapolis.
In addition to his ministry at First-Plymouth, Tom is Music Director of Sounding Light - a chamber choir which he founded in southeastern Michigan in 2003. Sounding Light was honored with the invitation to perform at the national convention of the ACDA in March 2017. In spring 2019, Sounding Light offered the Michigan and Ohio premieres of John Muehleisen’s moving and meaningful Pietà.
In Fall 2018, Tom Trenney served as visiting conductor of the Wartburg Choir and Ritterchor Men’s Chorus at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. His semester in residence included leadership of the annual Christmas With Wartburg festival. In Spring 2019, he served as visiting conductor of the Doane Choir at Doane University in Crete, Nebraska, preparing the choir to sing in a performance of Johannes Brahms' A German Requiem which he conducted with the Abendmusik Chorus and Nebraska Wesleyan University Choir in April 2019.
In 2019, he was invited to become Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choirs at Nebraska Wesleyan University where he now holds the Susan Sehnert Stuart Professorship in Choral Music. His choirs have been awarded winners in the American Prize for choral ensembles. In 2023, he was honored with the Raabe Prize for Choral Composition from the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, and in 2024, he was named the Nebraska Music Education Association's Music Educator of the Year.
Tom Trenney has been a featured performer at churches, colleges, and concert halls across the country including Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Kansas City’s Kauffman Center, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and NYC's Carnegie Hall. An active member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), he serves on the national Committee on the New Organist and is an executive board member of the Detroit Chapter. He has presented numerous programs around the country including solo recitals, duo recitals, hymn festivals, service playing workshops, and master-classes. He is, however, in most frequent demand for his popular accompaniments to silent films. Most notably, he has been a featured performer at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists in Dallas, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Cleveland.
Tom Trenney's choral compositions are published by Augsburg Fortress, Beckenhorst Press, Choristers Guild, E.C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Gentry, Morningstar, Musicspoke, Pavane, and G. Schirmer. His music has been sung in churches and colleges around the country. Tom’s CD recordings with First-Plymouth and Sounding Light have been featured on national public radio’s Pipedreams, With Heart and Voice, and Sing for Joy.
Most notably, Tom Trenney has been blessed to perform and teach at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), the ACDA, the Organ Historical Society, the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, the Sewanee Church Music Conference, and the Calvin Institute of Worship. |
