Peter Christian Lutkin

Peter Christian Lutkin was born at Thompsonville, Wisconsin, on March 27, 1858, to Danish immigrant parents and was raised chiefly in Chicago. He received formative musical experience as a chorister and organist in Episcopal churches and studied organ, piano, and theory with leading Chicago teachers. After joining Northwestern University's Conservatory of Music as a young piano instructor, he continued his education in Berlin from 1881 to 1884. On returning to Chicago, he served as organist and choirmaster at St. Clement's Protestant Episcopal Church and later at St. James Episcopal Church while also teaching at the American Conservatory of Music.

Lutkin returned to Northwestern in 1891 and became the first dean of its School of Music in the mid-1890s, remaining dean until 1928. He organized and directed choral ensembles, including the Northwestern A Cappella Choir in 1906, and became an influential advocate for unaccompanied ensemble singing in American education. He was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists, edited church-music publications including The Methodist Hymnal of 1905, lectured and wrote on worship music, and composed hymn tunes and choral works. The Lord Bless You and Keep You, published in 1900, is his most widely indexed composition. Lutkin died in Evanston, Illinois, on December 27, 1931; his educational and conducting work helped shape the collegiate choral culture in which his benediction continued to circulate.