Phillips Memorial Baptist Church
Phillips HomePhillips Memorial Baptist Church
565 Pontiac Avenue
Cranston, Rhode Island 02910
401-467-3300
Martha Sobaje
Minister of Music and Education
Martha Sobaje is Minister of Music and
Education at Phillips Memorial Baptist
Church, and Adjunct Instructor of Music
at the Community College of Rhode
Island. She has previously held
positions on the faculties of Gordon College,
Barrington College, and the University of
Northern Colorado. She holds the Bachelor
of Music degree in Organ Performance from
the University of the Pacific in Stockton,
California, the Master of Music degree in
Organ Performance and Church Music from
the Eastman School of Music in Rochester,
New York, where she studied organ with
Russell Saunders and David Craighead,
and the Doctor of Sacred Music degree
from the Graduate Theological Foundation in
South Bend, Indiana. She has also done summer
study in choral conducting at Westminster Choir
College in Princeton, New Jersey, and attended
the Summer Programme in Theology at University
of Oxford’s Christ Church in Oxford, England.
Dr. Sobaje has conducted choirs at all levels, including the Colorado Youth Chorale, of which she was the founder and director. She has conducted the Rhode Island Junior High All-State Chorus and the Rhode Island High School All-State Chamber Singers, has adjudicated the Rhode Island All-State auditions, the Rhode Island Music Educators High School Choral Festival, and the Rhode Island South County Choral Festival. Dr. Sobaje has conducted choir tours through America, Canada, and Europe.
She is a member of ASCAP, and is published through Kendor Music, Almitra Music, Elkan-Vogel, Music 70, Studio PR, Wayne Leupold Editions Inc., Darcey Press, Lifeway Christian Resources, and The Organist’s Companion. In addition to many choral, organ, and handbell publications, she has authored articles for Journal of Church Music, School Music News, Rhode Island Music Educators Review, Woodwind World-Brass & Percussion, The College Music Symposium, The Instrumentalist, and GlorySounds. She has also lectured and served as a clinician at several conventions across the country.
In July 2001, Dr. Sobaje was invited to perform an organ recital of her compositions at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford University, England. Other recent performances include Indiana and New England recitals. In addition to being an organ recitalist, she is active in the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, of which she recently completed a two-year term as Dean.
Dr. Sobaje spoke at a symposium at the EROI (Eastman-Rochester Organ Initiative) Festival in Rochester, New York, on October 16, 2008. She spoke about her new book, "The Silver Fox: The Life and Legacy of Russell Saunders." Mr Saunders was one of Martha's organ teachers at the Eastman School of Music.
Martha Sobaje Honored
with Award by the
Rhode Island Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Dr. Martha H. Sobaje was recognized with this year’s annual Anna Fiore-Smith Award in the presence of her choir and pastor at the Festival of Choirs event on November 1, 2009 at St. Paul Church, Cranston. Tributes to Martha were given by her publisher Wayne Leupold, Cheri Markward, chair of the Department of Music at Community College of Rhode Island, and the Rev. Wesley Smith, pastor of Phillips Memorial Church, and were read by Stephen Martorella, Dean of the Rhode Island Chapter. The award was then presented to Martha “in recognition of her excellence in leadership, dedication, and vision.” There followed a rendering of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Old Hundredth (“All people that on earth do dwell”) by the assembled choirs, congregation, and organ.
