Joseph Herl

Joseph Herl earned a BA in music from Concordia College in Bronxville, New York. He subsequently received a master’s degree in organ performance from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), where he studied with Charles S. Brown and Lenora McCroskey, and a PhD in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he assisted his advisor, Nicholas Temperley, in producing The Hymn Tune Index: A Census of English-Language Hymn Tunes in Printed Sources from 1535–1820. Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of Concordia University, Nebraska, where he is professor of music and teaches music history, world music, first-year music theory, liturgy, hymnody, and church music. In 2004 his first book, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism: Choir, Congregation, and Three Centuries of Conflict, was published by Oxford University Press and subsequently was awarded the Roland Bainton Prize of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. While working on the book, Herl was also involved in the preparation of Lutheran Service Book (2006). In 2011 he became editor, with Peter C. Reske and Jon D. Vieker, of Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Hymns. Herl is also a composer of music for choir, organ, and piano. His music has been published by Concordia Publishing House, Oxford University Press, and MorningStar Music Publishers. Herl serves Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, as organist. In 2020 he was appointed research professor in the University of Illinois School of Music, succeeding Nicholas Temperley as director of the Hymn Tune Index, a position he holds concurrently with his full-time service at Concordia. In 2022 Concordia Seminary in St. Louis awarded him an honorary doctorate.