Tod Trimble was raised on a corn and Black Angus cattle farm in Illinois. Besides being a farmer,
his father, Gene Trimble,
has had a Glenn Miller–type dance band (“The Midwest’s Most Danceable Music”) since before Tod was born. Now in his eighties, Gene is
still going strong, playing trumpet in his larger ensemble and small combos. (Gene recently completed his 50th year leading his crowd-pleasing
clown band on daily strolls through the Illinois State Fair.)
Tod
graduated from Millikin University, in Decatur, Illinois, where he studied choral conducting under Richard Hoffland, a protégé of Paul Christiansen.
Thus trained in the Nordic Lutheran college choir style, he went on to get a Master of Arts degree in Conducting from the University of Denver
and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music from the University of Illinois. (For good measure, along the way he also picked up a Master of Science degree in Psychology from the University
of Wyoming.)
Dr. Trimble
taught for seven years at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania, where he was a tenured, Associate Professor of Music, chair of the Department of Music,
and led the Thiel Choir and Thiel Chamber Singers on annual domestic tours and two tours of Europe. He also conducted the Shenango Valley Chorale, an ensemble similar to the Missoula Community
Chorus in its high artistic standards, overseeing that organization’s development of the Shenango Valley Children’s Chorale.
In 1993, Dr. Trimble began a fifteen-year stint with the College
Music Society, a national association of college and university professors. For most of those years, he planned and managed annual conferences all
over the U.S., plus
an international conference every other year. He thus was responsible for professional musical events in Berlin, Vienna, Japan, Ireland, Costa Rica,
Argentina, Spain, and Bangkok.
Later
he took on administrative work for CMS committees and worked with the Society President on the organization’s community engagement projects. The Society’s
management was unprepared for the economic downturn of 2009, abruptly eliminating Tod’s position one week after bringing the financial
crisis to the attention
of the Society’s Budget Committee. Recently Tod added administrative and secretarial duties to his work at Missoula’s Atonement Lutheran
Church, where he has served for over a decade as member and organist.
Tod’s
wife, Monica, holds a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Illinois, and is a licensed clinical social worker. Monica has had an extensive
career in medical social work, working in hospice and home health, teaching at the University of Montana School of Social Work, and working for Community Medical Center.
The Trimbles have three children, all of whom graduated from
Missoula’s Hellgate High School. Claire is a recent graduate of the Tulane University School of Law and works in a small legal firm in New Orleans.
Grace developed her
love of theatre working summers in the costume shop of the Missoula Children’s Theatre, worked the last two summers in the costume shop of
the Santa Fe Opera, and is in her final year of a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatrical Costume Design at the University of Central Florida.
When he isn’t
snowboarding or working as a licensed massage therapist, Dan attends the University of Montana.
In 2008, Tod and Monica had a contemporary home built on the
Bitterroot River north of Stevensville. As their friends predicted, living on the river has turned them into bird-watchers. They also enjoy cooking,
traveling, entertaining
friends, doting on their dogs, doting on their children’s dogs, hiking the Bitterroots, and tubing in the river on hot summer days.
