Composer, conductor, organist, preacher, and teacher Tom Trenney has been blessed to serve as Minister of Music to First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, since 2009. In 2019, he became Director of Choirs at Nebraska Wesleyan University where he now holds the Susan Sehnert Stuart Endowed Professorship for Choral Music. Tom’s choirs have been honored to perform for state, regional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and they have been award winners in the American Prize for choral ensembles. In 2024, Tom was named Music Educator of the Year by the Nebraska Music Education Association.

Tom 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, DC’s Kennedy Center, and NYC’s Carnegie Hall. His choral compositions are published by Augsburg Fortress, Beckenhorst Press, Choristers Guild, E.C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Gentry, Morningstar, Musicspoke, Pavane, and G. Schirmer. His piece “From Generation to Generation” won the Raabe Prize for Excellence in Sacred Composition from the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians in 2023.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music, Tom is grateful for the inspiration of his teachers and mentors – especially Anton Armstrong, David Davidson, Craig Hella Johnson, (Mister) Fred Rogers, William Weinert, Anne Wilson and Todd Wilson.