Dr. Jeffrey Blersch

2023 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award Recipient

Dr. Jeffrey Blersch is a nationally recognized organist, choral conductor and composer of music for the church. He has served as professor of music at Concordia University, Nebraska since 2002 where he teaches organ, service playing, music theory and is the conductor of the Cantamus Women’s Choir. He is a graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he received degrees in organ performance and music education, and of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance. His principal teachers have included Roberta Gary, Garth Peacock and Marilyn Mason. 

Best known for his creative hymn interpretations, Dr. Blersch regularly performs hymn festivals and recitals across the United States. Performances have included conventions of the American Guild of Organists, Association of Lutheran Church Musicians and National Association of Pastoral Musicians, as well as the Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas, and the Kauffman Center, Kansas City. His performances have been featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams and The Lutheran Hour. 

Dr. Blersch has been an active church musician since being appointed organist of Peace Lutheran Church, Cincinnati, Ohio at age eight. His organ, choral and piano compositions and collections, which number over 300 titles, are published with Concordia Publishing House and Northwestern Publishing House, and his original hymn tunes have been included in three hymnals, including Lutheran Service Book. He has released two compact disc recordings of his own compositions and arrangements, Resounding Alleluias, and On Christmas Night, and two EPs, Piano Duets for Christmas and Piano Duets for Easter on major streaming services. 

Blersch and his wife Carla, an adjunct music faculty member at Concordia and piano instructor at St. John, have three children, Aaron, Ryan and Jenna.