Tom Trenney, Artistic Director

Phone - (402) 476-9933 ext. 222

Email -  tom@abendmusik.org

Tom Trenney serves as Artistic Director of Abendmusik at First-Plymouth, conducting the Abendmusik Chorus and ABENDCHOR. He also serves as Minister of Music at First-Plymouth Church, teaches the Women's Chorale at Doane College, and conducts sounding light-- a chamber choir based in Southeastern Michigan. Tom has led performances of many of the great choral/orchestral works of Bach, Brahms, Britten, Duruflé, Dvorak, Handel, Haydn, Poulenc, and Vaughan Williams. He holds degrees in Choral Conducting and Organ Performance from the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. His mentors have included Anne Wilson, Todd Wilson, William Weinert, David Higgs, Anton Armstrong, and David Davidson. 

Tom has won national competitions in organ performance, becoming the first organist to win first prize and audience prize in the American Guild of Organists' National Competition in Organ Improvisation. Known for innovative performances and inspiring workshops, Tom is in frequent demand as a concert organist and church music clinician across America. He has performed as organist and conductor for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts, the National Pastoral Musicians, and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. Tom is represented by Karen McFarlane Artists Management. His CD recordings are available on the Pro Organo and Raven labels. 

Tom and his partner, Brent, live near Holmes Lake and are grateful to be part of the Abendmusik family.

Jeremy Bankson, Executive Director

Phone - (402) 476-9933 ext. 223

Email - jeremy@abendmusik.org

Jeremy serves as the Executive Director of Abendmusik at First-Plymouth and Associate Conductor of the Abendmusik Chorus. He first began working with Abendmusik in August of 2007, and then served as Interim Artistic Director from July 2008 through August 2009. Jeremy is also the Associate Minister of Music at First-Plymouth Church where he is responsible for conducting the First-Plymouth Chorale, Youth Orchestra, and Matin Singers. He also conducts the church’s resident professional brass ensemble, the Plymouth Brass and collaboratively works with the First-Plymouth Choir.

Jeremy is a native Nebraskan who received his BM from UNL in 1997 and is currently working on a Masters in Choral Conducting. He was the Director of Music/Organist at St. John Lutheran Church in Beatrice, Nebraska for three years before moving to be the Associate Director of Music at Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1999.

Active as a composer/arranger, he has led workshops, clinics and hymn festivals for the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, American Guild of Organists, Leadership Program for Musicians, Augsburg Fortress and various other churches around the country. His compositions can be found in the catalogs of MorningStar Music Publishers, Augsburg Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House.

Rebecca Shane, Administrative Director

Phone - (402) 476-9933 ext. 230

Email - rebecca@abendmusik.org

Rebecca Shane joined Abendmusik as the Administrative Director in December 2009.  She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

While at the university she studied voice in the studio of Donna Harler-Smith and performed extensively in roles such as La Principessa in Suor Angelica, Zita in Gianni Schicchi, Florence Pike in Albert Herring, Charlotte Bartlett in A Room With A View, Madam Flora in The Medium, Ma Moss in The Tender Land, and the Mother in the Sacred Arts Council's production of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors.

She has performed with the Omaha Symphony, the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra and the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra in works including Mozart's Requiem, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Vivaldi's Gloria, and Thompson's Nativity According to Saint Luke. Other oratorio credits include Mozart's Coronation Mass, Bach's Magnificat, and Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass.

Rebecca is a past president of Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity and was an Alice Dobson alumni scholarship recipient.  She passes on her love of music as a member of the First-Plymouth Choir, the Abendmusik Chorus and ABENDCHOR and enjoys teaching diverse literature in her private voice studio.

She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with her husband and their three beautiful children.