James Bobb
Soloist
Tuesday, July 4 at 7:00 pm
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul
Associate Professor of Music; Elliot M. and Klara Stockdal Johnson Chair in Organ and Church Music, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
James Bobb, a native of Chillicothe, Ohio, is the Elliot & Klara Stockdahl Johnson Associate Professor of Organ & Church Music at St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota; he is also Director of the St. Olaf Cantorei, and Cantor to the Student Congregation. He joined the St. Olaf faculty in 2012 with more than 20 years’ experience directing church music in Lutheran and United Church of Christ congregations. Following the Lutheran cantorial tradition, Bobb regularly composes or improvises music for weekly worship and directs the 66-voice Cantorei in concerts, worship services, and the annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival. Bobb plays organ and/or oversees the preparation of music for the six live-streamed chapel services each week (http://www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/), including Sunday morning Eucharists. As Associate Professor of Music, Bobb is one of two professors of organ and teaches church music classes in one of the few undergraduate-only programs leading to a Bachelor of Music degree in Church Music.
Bobb holds performer’s certificates and Master of Music degrees in organ and harpsichord performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, where his teachers included Russell Saunders and David Craighead in organ and Arthur Haas in harpsichord. James Bobb served as Minister of Music at First Congregational Church, Columbus, Ohio from 2009-2012. For fifteen years prior to that, Bobb served the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word in Rochester, New York.