Edwin Arthur Kraft

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Edwin Arthur Kraft (January 8, 1883 – July 15, 1962) was an American organist and choir director. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and began playing the organ at 15, first at Grace Methodist Church and then as organist and choirmaster at the Church of the Ascension. He studied at Yale University with Horatio Parker and Harry Jepson, then worked at St. Thomas's Church in Brooklyn. Kraft spent three years in Europe studying organ in Berlin with Grunicke and Edgar Stillman Kelley, and in Paris with Alexandre Guilmant and Charles-Marie Widor. After returning to the United States, he was organist at St. Matthew's Church in Wheeling, West Virginia.

In 1907 he was chosen from 90 applicants to be the organist of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, and he gave the dedicatory concert for the cathedral’s Skinner Organ Co. pipe organ. He moved to Atlanta in 1914 to work as municipal organist but returned to Trinity Cathedral in 1915. Kraft also served as director of music at Lake Erie College and as head of the organ department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He retired from the cathedral in 1959.

He married Nancy Lovis in December 1909; they had three children: Nanette, Margaret, and Edwin Arthur Jr. After Nancy’s death in 1925, Kraft married mezzo-soprano Marie Simmelink. He was a fellow of the American Guild of Organists. Kraft died on July 15, 1962, and was buried in the Knollwood Cemetery Mausoleum.