Robert Batastini

Robert J. Batastini is the retired vice president and senior editor for GIA Publications, Inc., Chicago. Though retired from management, he maintains an active role at GIA. Bob has over fifty years of service in pastoral music ministry, having served several parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago and one in the Diocese of Joliet. He is now director of music emeritus for St. Joseph Parish in Downers Grove, Illinois. He served as executive editor and project director for the Worship hymnals (three editions), Gather hymnals (three editions), Catholic Community Hymnal, and as executive editor of RitualSong.

In 1993 he became the first recipient of the Father Lawrence Heimann Citation for lifetime contribution to church music and liturgy in the U.S., awarded by St. Joseph's College, Rensselaer, Indiana, and was named "Pastoral Musician of the Year-2000" by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM). At its 2006 conference, he was named a Fellow of the Hymn society in the United States and Canada.

Bob is a thirty year member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, past-president of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, served as a member of the Council for the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, and currently is a member of the Music Advisory Committee of the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy.