Organ Master Class
Friday, September 6 at 5:00 PM
Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall (Music Hall Room 140)
Organ Recital: The 31st Annual Organists of Iowa
Saturday, September 7 at 3:30 PM
Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall (Music Hall Room 140)
Michael Elsbernd is Director of Worship and Music at St. John’s Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Des Moines, Iowa, where he conducts the Cathedral Choir, String Scholars, and serves as principal organist. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty of Grand View University, where he teaches organ. A graduate of Luther College, Elsbernd earned a Master of Music Degree from Westminster Choir College of Rider University and completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at the University of Michigan. He was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda (National Music Honor Society) in 1999 and was awarded a grant from the Theodore Presser Foundation in 2001, upon the recommendation of the Faculty Council for Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan. The Presser Foundation grant funded Elsbernd’s dissertation project on the music of Jan Adam Reincken. His principal teachers include William Kuhlman, Eugene Roan, James Kibbie, and Marilyn Mason. Additional studies were completed with Harald Vogel at the North German Organ Academy.
Elsbernd has served terms as Repertoire and Standards Chair for the South Dakota ACDA, District Convener and Chapter Dean for the South Dakota Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), and is currently member-at-large of the Central Iowa Chapter AGO board. He has made concert appearances with Boston Brass, Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, Michigan Sinfonietta Orchestra, and the choirs of South Dakota State University. He has three hymn-based compositions published by Alliance Publications, Inc. Elsbernd resides in Waukee, Iowa, with his wife, Nichole Colsch, and their two children, Ethan and Abigail.