Peter Christian Lutkin (1858-1931) was born in Thompsonville, Wisconsin. Son of Danish immigrants, he attended Chicago public schools and was a chorister and organist at St. Peter and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. He began music training and studied organ and piano at age 13 and became a piano instructor in the Conservatory of Music at Northwestern University at age 21. He studied in Berlin and was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts. He returned to Chicago to serve as organist and choirmaster, first at St. Clement’s Protestant Episcopal Church and later at St. James Episcopal Church. He also served on the faculty of the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. He was a widely respected organist and helped found the American Guild of Organists. He returned to Northwestern University and became the first dean of the newly established Conservatory of Music. He founded the Women’s Cecilian Choir, the Men’s Glee Club, and the A Cappella Choir, the first a cappella choir in the U.S. It became the prototype for collegiate choirs even to the present. He became a national spokesperson for a cappella singing and advocated the merits of unaccompanied singing and a cappella choral repertoire. He composed a number of choral works and is best remembered for “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.”

All are mixed chorus unless noted; some contain divisi.