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West Texas Music Minister Shares Love of Songs, Composing

The Amarillo native says, 'The goal has been to have a variety of styles'

Immersed in music from his earliest memories, Lowell Lynn Hohstadt has followed that love to the highest levels while his pursuit led him to a comprehensive approach embracing most genres.

The Odessa American reports that, having been music minister at Odessa Christian Faith Center since its formative period 31 years ago, the 55-year-old Amarillo native says, "The goal has been to have a variety of styles, classical, country, jazz and rock, and include as many people as possible so we can go on a journey together and come into what we describe as the presence of God.

"I start from scratch each Christmas with originally conceived ideas, working six to eight months into the next year with my own charts," said Hohstadt, who directs a stage band and choir of three dozen people at the 9000 Andrews Highway church where the Rev. Don Caywood is senior pastor.

"We're a multiracial, multigenerational church with a wide demographic. We are all equal in one another's eyes and we consider one another valuable. I don't think there will just one type of people in Heaven. We'll be of all backgrounds with all kinds of stuff happening. Why wait till Heaven to enjoy that?"

Citing Psalm 22:3, he said, "The Lord inhabits the praises of his people."

Hohstadt grew up watching his father Thomas conduct symphonies in Amarillo, Honolulu and here and went with his dad as a teenage violinist to play with symphonies in Romania, Yugoslavia and Austria. Thomas is a University of Texas of the Permian Basin professor. Lowell earned a bachelor's degree at The Julliard School in Manhattan and a master's at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. The younger Hohstadt and his wife Kathy have two children. His mom's name is Muriel. He has a sister.

Hohstadt has written more than 400 compositions including three violin concertos, or symphonies, and numerous Christian-themed pieces.

His historical hero is Johann Sebastian Bach, who spent most of his career as music minister of St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Saxony, Germany, and was relatively unknown till 75 years after his death in 1750.

"Bach wrote with minimal resources and created a vast body of work because he loved God and the creative process," Hohstadt said. "He was very diligent. It's not so much where you are as it is who you become where you are. I look at Bach as that example."

OCFC audio-visual specialist David Young, whose wife Carmen sings in the choir, said Hohstadt "is humble, very friendly and a super nice guy.

"Lowell's talent is unbelievable from writing music to putting the pieces together and playing," Young said. "He could have gone into the secular world and done whatever he wanted, but he chose to stay in Odessa and ply his career here. He is amazing."

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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