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Sharon Dobbins Alberson began her journey of faith with music as a little girl, growing up in a Pentecostal minister’s family. She learned to sing in church. Sharon took piano lessons from her older brother Bill (who is now a Professor of Jazz Studies at Eastman School of Music) and has been greatly influenced by his approach to classical music and jazz. As a teenager, Sharon studied voice with Betty Dornan in Akron, Ohio, and then received a music scholarship from Kent State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance. In 1980 and 1981 Sharon was a Blossom Festival Music Scholar with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. Sharon is a graduate of The University of Akron School of Law, Harvard Divinity School and Oxford University. She is a member of the Ohio Bar and is an ordained minister of The United Church of Christ. Her professional work in Law, Religion and Ethics (including 15 years of university teaching and 4 years of parish ministry) and her personal faith journey inform her music.
Inspired by the faith of her mother Dolores Dobbins, who died in June of 1992, Sharon has been writing and producing faith musicals since 1993. The mission for Faith Musicals is to bring people together around a faith-building message and, at the same time, meet a concrete community need. The first musical, The Law of Love, was performed first at Salem Lutheran Church (Bridgeport, CT) in October 1993, for the benefit of Habitat for Humanity and The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport. Since its original production, The Law of Love has been performed in other venues (Simsbury, CT; Auburn, ME; Daytona Beach, FL; St. Louis, MO; and Akron, OH). The Trial of Job, the second faith musical, premiered in 1996, for the benefit of the VNS of Connecticut Hospice at Home Program and Inter-faith Volunteer Caregivers. The next three musicals, Found and Forgiven (1998), A Star for Freedom (1999) and Forever Love (2000), were produced at the Quick Center for the Performing Arts at Fairfield University. These productions benefited The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport (CT) and numerous other charities in the Bridgeport area meeting the needs of at-risk young people and the homeless. The Chaplain, Sharon’s sixth musical--based on her personal experience as a chaplain intern, was produced in Southport, CT in March, 2006, for the benefit of seminary scholarships, and in St. Louis, MO, in April, 2006. Sharon’s most recent musical, The Peace Table premiered in April of 2008, at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Stamford, CT (as a benefit for Autism), and was performed in August of 2009, at Trinity United Church of Christ in Canton, OH (as a benefit for Hope Homes).