WELS/ELS COMPOSERS
The WELS/ELS composers below are all published composers with a focus on music for worship. They are available to compose on commission for churches, schools, or organizations and are eager to use their talents for the glory of our Lord and to serve your special needs.
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Jeremy Bakken
Jeremy S. Bakken is a composer, arranger, worship accompanist, conductor and music instructor. He recently completed coursework  toward a doctorate in choral music at the University of Southern California and anticipates his first full-time appointment at the collegiate level. Prior to enrolling at USC, Jeremy earned a master's in composition and choral conducting from the University of New Mexico (2013), where he taught music theory and aural skills as a graduate assistant. He has also worked previously in music retail (Beihoff Music Corp, Milwaukee, WI) and for the Wisconsin Ev. Lutheran Synod as administrative assistant for the Commission on Youth Discipleship (now Commission on Youth and Family Ministry). Jeremy is also a part-time member of the WELS music group Branches Band (www.branchesband.com), and serves on the hymns subcommittee of the WELS Hymnal Project (www.welshymnal.com). Jeremy focuses primarily on original choral composition, as well as hymn-based arrangements of all kinds. His compositions and arrangements are available from Northwestern Publishing House, Choristers Guild, Kjos, Pavane Publishing, and at www.jsbakken.com. Jeremy is a graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran College (2004, Music and Mathematics) and is a member at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Los Angeles, CA.
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David Biedenbender
David Biedenbender has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his work is often influenced by his diverse musical experiences in rock and jazz bands as a bassist, in wind, jazz, and New Orleans-style brass bands as a  euphonium, trombone, and tuba player, and by study of Indian Carnatic Music. His present creative interests include working with everyone from classically trained musicians to improvisers, acoustic chamber music to large ensembles, and interactive electronic interfaces to live brain data. He has had the privilege of collaborating with and being commissioned by many talented performers and ensembles, including Alarm Will Sound, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Stenhammar String Quartet, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the U.S. Navy Band, Philharmonie Baden-Baden (Germany), VocalEssence, and the Eastman Wind Ensemble, among many others. He is currently Assistant Professor of Composition in the College of Music at Michigan State University, and he holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan and Central Michigan University. He has also studied at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, the Aspen Music Festival, and in India where he studied carnatic music.
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Tracy Fedke
Tracy Fedke holds an A.A. degree from Bethany Lutheran College, and a B.S. in Vocal Music Education K-12 from Minnesota State University. She also obtained her Synod Certification at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN. She taught Music at Great Plains Lutheran High School from 2000 to 2006.  Tracy has had the privilege of singing with the musical group Koine for almost ten years. She continues to arrange hymns, psalm settings, and new liturgies for Koine and her home church. Tracy lives with her husband and three children in Buford, GA. She serves as the Music director for the Choir and Sunday School Choir, and sings with the Contemporary group LIFT at Messiah Lutheran Church in Alpharetta, GA. Tracy enjoys recording as well, and much of her music can be found at tracyfedke.com.
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Valerie Floeter
Valerie Floeter is a composer, performer and piano/organ teacher in the greater Milwaukee area. She has published over 400 sacred compositions for piano, organ and instrumental solos.  She earned her Bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in education and was a software engineer for 25 years before returning to school to complete a Master of Church Music with Organ Emphasis degree. She started Floeter Music in 2009 to allow her to release her compositions in a shorter time span. She is also published by Northwestern Publishing House, Concordia Publishing House and Augsburg Fortress Publishing. Valerie composes primarily sacred music for piano or piano with a solo instrument, but also for organ and some choral. The hallmark of her writing is accessibility with the hymn tune prominent in her arrangements. She currently has about 30 music students. Valerie also accompanies the WELS Children's Choir at Wisconsin Lutheran High School and is organist at Grace Lutheran Church in Waukesha. She performs with trumpeter Dr. Patricia Backhaus under the name of "In His Service" and they have released six CDs.
Contact Information
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Patricia Kayser
Patricia Kayser is the wife of the Rev. Lowell Kayser. They have been married 61 years and have 4 children, 9 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. Patricia has been a church organist for around 65 years. She began her musical life as a very young child, falling asleep while listening to her mother sing and play piano in the evenings after putting her sister and her to bed. Piano lessons began at age 7 or 8, followed by flute instruction which started when she was in 5th grade. She was recruited as an organist at church  when she was 15 and served as an accompanist in high school and ever since. She studied both flute and organ at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and played in the Luther College Concert Band. She taught piano for around 40 years, retiring from that in 2002. While teaching she attended countless seminars and workshops for piano teachers. For a short time she played flute in the Springfield, IL, Symphony Orchestra. She has followed her pastor/husband around the world and has been his church musician at nearly all of his calls. He has retired (but still "helps out") and she still serves as organist in their little church, Christ Our Savior Lutheran in Etna, Wyoming. She admits she loves it. Wherever they have lived, she has tried, when possible, to keep studying music. Even while living in Manila, the Philippines, where they were missionaries for 7 years, she was able to study both piano and flute with excellent teachers and played in a chamber trio as well.
Already in high school and college she did a bit of composing, but not seriously. In the 1990s she attended some summer organist's workshops at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN. In a class on hymn improvisations and with the encouragement and help of her mentor, the Rev. Kantor Richard Resch, and others, she began to write some hymn tune improvisations. She enjoyed doing this very much and found that it was most helpful to be able to do so. Many times when her own music library did not have a prelude on a given hymn chosen by the pastor she could write one herself and make it short and easy enough to be practical given there was not always much time to prepare. She believes strongly that the prelude, voluntary and postlude should be based on the hymns for each Sunday. The workshops helped also to reinforce her love and appreciation for our treasured Lutheran hymnody.
After several years of composing organ preludes and accumulating them for her own use someone suggested she should try to get them published. Thus began her history with Northwestern Publishing House.
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Mark Knickelbein
Mark Knickelbein is editor of music/worship at Concordia Publishing House and an active composer and church musician. He has  choral, piano, and organ music published by Northwestern Publishing House and Concordia Publishing House. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College, New Ulm, MN and Master of Arts in Music from Concordia University Chicago. He previously served Trinity Lutheran in Kaukauna, WI as principal, teacher, organist, and choir director. He is a member of Apostles Lutheran in Dardenne Prairie, MO.
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Rebecca Kramer
Rebecca Kramer composes music for piano, organ, choir, and a variety of instruments. She enjoys writing original songs for worship (including original lyrics), as well as music that incorporates Lutheran hymnody and scripture verses. She has solo piano and organ music published by Northwestern Publishing House, and her published vocal music includes two children’s Christmas services with original music. She has been commissioned for a variety of projects. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minnesota. She currently directs a large children’s choir at her home church, Good Shepherd Lutheran in West Bend, Wisconsin.
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Sarah Lambrecht
Sarah Lambrecht studied music at Wisconsin Lutheran College and graduated with a BA in Music Education in 1998. After graduation she served as an elementary school music teacher and as an assistant to the Music Editor at Northwestern Publishing House. She then spent 12 years serving in WELS mission congregations in New Mexico and Colorado, working as a ministry assistant and music coordinator. Sarah composes hymn tunes, using both new and existing texts to create modern hymns for the church. Sarah currently lives in the Milwaukee area, where her husband, Adam, is studying for the pastoral ministry.
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Joyce Schubkegel
Joyce Schubkegel, a graduate of Concordia Junior College in Fort Wayne, Indiana, earned her Bachelor of Science in Education at Concordia University-Chicago and Masters of Music in Organ Performance degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She has served as an elementary grade school teacher, full-time organist, choral conductor, and music director at  congregations in Indiana and Illinois, in addition to teaching on the music faculties of Concordia University-Chicago and Milwaukee Lutheran Teachers College. She has taught organ, piano classes, and choral conducting and choral repertoire classes at Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minnesota, where for twenty-eight years, she also conducted and composed for the Dr. Martin Luther College Treble Choir, and is currently serving as an adjunct music professor.
Her compositions have won various awards, including first place in the Children’s Choral Composition Competition in the Twin Cities, recipient of the Richard Hillert Award in Composition at Concordia University-Chicago, and first place in the WELS Anniversary Concertato Composition Competition. Her publications include a WELS-commissioned Christmas Eve Service (text and music), choral compositions, concertatos, a nativity fantasia, settings of liturgical verses and Biblical texts, psalm refrains, hymns, and wedding solos through Northwestern Publishing House, Concordia Publishing House and Morning Star Publishers.
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Michael Schultz
 Pastor Michael Schultz currently serves as the project director for the next WELS hymnal. He has played guitar since high school and more recently chaired the Hymns Subcommittee for Christian Worship: Supplement. He assembled the guitar edition for that volume, and also generated all the digital audio files for the HymnSoft media player which is used by congregations which don't have a regular keyboardist. He likes to work on both retranslations of German hymns and new English texts. He started sharing some of his composition work around the time of the 2011 WELS National Conference on Worship, Music and the Arts, where he demonstrated a setting of the divine service written for piano and guitar. That and other works can be seen at www.forthedirectorofmusic.com.
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Sarah Siegler
Sarah Siegler is currently the grade school and high school orchestra director at Shoreland Lutheran High School in Somers, WI. She received a B.A. in Music Education from St. Ola f College in Northfield, MN, and her M.M.Ed. from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, IL. She previously taught elementary and middle school orchestra for Regional School District 15 in central Connecticut for nine years. She enjoys composing both choral and instrumental music, and her pieces have been performed by a wide variety of school and church ensembles throughout the states. She is published with NPH, Grand Mesa and Imagine Music. Sarah is a member of Bethany Lutheran in Somers, WI.
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Tim Tollefson
Tim Tollefson is a member of the ELS and works full-time at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota, where he teaches music theory, counterpoint, and other classes related to music composition. He also gives composition lessons every semester and started the annual New Music Recital at Bethany. His M.M. degree is from Indiana State University, where he was awarded the 2000 Indiana State University Paul W. Hagan Composition Prize. He writes church music for organ and choir, and also enjoys jazz and other styles of music. Some of his hymn settings appear in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, and several of his compositions are available from Northwestern Publishing House and Zimbel Press. He lives in Mankato, Minnesota with his wife, Melissa.
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Dale Witte
Dale Witte presently serves at Winnebago Lutheran Academy in Fond du Lac, WI as choir director and Fine Arts Department Chair, as well as teacher of Music Theory and Music Technology. He holds degrees from Martin Luther College (BS Elementary Education, 1989) and Concordia University, Chicago (Master of Church Music, 1997). Dale is an active church music composer available for commission. He has liturgical, choral, and piano compositions published by Northwestern Publishing House and Concordia Publishing House. He is a member of Faith Lutheran Church in Fond du Lac, WI.
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Carl Ziebell
Carl R. Ziebell is a composer of Lutheran organ and choral music. His specialty is chorale preludes for organ and he currently has  over 20 published pieces contained in seven publications, plus some self-published partitas on Sheet Music Plus. Carl's greatest compositional honor was being commissioned to write a partita based on the tune TRIUMPH for the 2011 WELS National Worship Conference in St. Peter, MN.
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Links to Composer Websites 
Kevin Bode currently serves as 5th grade teacher and Director of Music for Emmanuel Lutheran Church and School in Tempe, Arizona. He holds degrees from Martin Luther College (BS in elementary education, 2006) and from Concordia University, Milwaukee (Master of Church Music, 2014). He is thankful to be chairman of the new WELS hymnology curriculum to be released in 2018 and a member of both our Synod’s Commission on Worship as well as New Hymnal Project.
Martin Luther High School (New York City), and Immanuel Lutheran School (Elmhurst, IL). His degrees include a DA in music history from Ball State University, an MA from Long Island University, and a BS in Music Education from Concordia College, Seward, NB. 
Preparatory School in Watertown, WI. She enjoys composing and arranging both choral and instrumental music of all kinds and has composed over one hundred songs for children and junior choir. She has published two songbooks of original children’s music, both of which are carried by Northwestern Publishing House, and has composed numerous songs for the NPH VBS series and both original music and arrangements for children’s Christmas services. Linda was commissioned for a series of organ preludes, two of which were published by Lorenz, and for works for brass and full bands. As part of her duties at Luther Prep, she regularly composes descants for various instruments to be used in worship. She is a member at Trinity in Watertown, where she serves as organist and, incidentally, has become the “go-to” person for the composition of fun songs and parodies honoring various church workers for special occasions.
choirs and choruses, elementary school choir, and numerous church choirs, as well as serving as conductor at several WELS Conferences on Worship, Music and the Arts. He has taught and served congregations and schools of the Wisconsin Ev. Lutheran Synod (WELS) in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin; Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; and New Ulm, Minnesota. In addition to a background in choral conducting and teaching, Dr. Moldenhauer served as the music editor for the WELS hymnal, Christian Worship, which was published in 1993. More recently he chaired the committee that produced Christian Worship: Supplement. Moldenhauer currently serves the church at large as a member of the WELS Commission on Worship. His educational background includes a Master in Church Music degree from Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois, and a Ph.D. from International Seminary, Plymouth, Florida. He is married to Laura (nee Smith). They have four children and eleven grandchildren. Dr. Moldenhauer is retiring in June of 2017.
