Kenneth T. Kosche

Kenneth T. Kosche is Professor of Music emeritus of Concordia University Wisconsin (Mequon, WI) where he directed the Concordia Chorale (chapel choir) and Kammerchor (touring choir), served as director of the parish music program, and taught conducting, choral literature, and composing/arranging to undergrads and graduate students in the Masters in Church Music degree program. A native Chicagoan, Kosche earned his B.S. in Music Education and M. S. degrees at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and D.M.A. in Choral Music from the University of Washington (Seattle). A teacher for forty years, he taught first in public schools in Illinois before moving to Seattle for doctoral study. After a year teaching at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, he accepted his position at CUW in 1978. His colleagues at CUW honored him with the Faculty Laureate in 1999. He retired in 2009. A parish musician at heart, Kosche has held minister of music positions in Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin, serving various combinations as organist, choral director, and worship planner. In retirement, he serves Trinity Lutheran Church in Billings, Montana as organist and volunteer in other musical capacities, including at Trinity’s elementary school. From 1979 through 1988 he directed the Lutheran A Cappella Choir of Milwaukee, relinquishing that role to devote more time to a then-growing family. His wife Rosemary (nee Harjes) and he are parents of adult church workers, Thomas (Lutheran school teacher in Billings, MT) and Anne (deaconess serving international students attending CMU in Mt. Pleasant, MI). Kosche was a 1990 Fellow in the Melodious Accord Program, studying in New York with Alice Parker, subsequently going back to NY and MA on several occasions for further coaching and study. God has blessed his creative activities with the success of having over 400 compositions for voices, organ, handbells, and instruments published by 17 publishers to date. Choir tours with Concordia University's Kammerchor have taken him to all parts of the US, Canada, Great Britain, Taiwan, Brazil, Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. He has adjudicated contests, given workshops and choral reading sessions in several states. He conducted the conference choir in a performance of Handel's Messiah at the biennial convention of the World Association of Chinese Church Musicians in Taipei in June, 2002. As a composer, he believes that melody is the wellspring of composition; that careful attention must be paid to the setting of texts both as to affect and accent; and that children and adults need quality music to sing and play in schools and churches with limited resources as well as for those who have large choirs, organs, handbell, and instrumental ensembles. Above all, he is grateful that music he has written and arranged may serve to the glory of God as a vehicle for sharing the Gospel.