Our Faculty

Jason J. Keefer is Professor and Director of Sacred Music and Principal Organist at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, and Founder and Director of the Sacred Music Institute of America. From 2012-2019, Dr. Keefer was Organ Artist-in-Residence at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio, and was previously Adjunct Professor of Organ at Ohio Wesleyan University. Prior to moving to Ohio, he served as Principal Organist and Director of Liturgical Music at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Choirmaster and Organist at the Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

 

Dr. Keefer holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance from West Virginia University, where he was awarded a full scholarship as a graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Music History. He earned a Master of Musical Arts in Sacred Music and Organ from Duquesne University and a Bachelor of Science in Music Education and Organ from Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, New York.

 

Dr. Keefer’s doctoral dissertation topic was “A Style-Based Approach to Hymn Improvisation: A Teaching Manual for Organ Students,” and he has taught and continues to teach courses and master classes based on the method that he formulated.

 

Dr. Keefer’s former organ teachers include David Craighead, Anne Musser Honeywell, Ann Labounsky, John Walker, William Haller and Edgar Highberger; his improvisation teachers have included Gerre Hancock, Ann Labounsky, Pierre Pincemaille, and Jean Pierre Leguay. He also studied conducting with Brady Allred and Kathleen Shannon and Gregorian chant with Fr. Stephen Concordia.