About His Music
Jerry was born in Minnesota where he spent the first half of his life which spanned three different musical careers. While teaching public school music for 11 years, he completed his Ph.D. in Music Education. His ability to teach and reduce concepts down to their simplest terms, shows up in the Tutorials you’ll enjoy on his YouTube Channel. At age ten, he was appointed pianist in a small Minnesota church where he played for 23 years.
Jerry’s second career took him to Denver, Colorado. It was a quantum leap from a church of 50 members to a church of 2,000 where he served for the next 37 years. Hired as Pianist and Director of Instrumental Music he developed an orchestra of 45 players, some of whom still maintain positions in major orchestras like the Cleveland and Denver Symphony Orchestras.
His third career, which he considers his ‘Swan Song’, was a piano concert career which took him to all continents and most states, performing over 1,200 concerts in 15 years for audiences ranging from 30 to convention halls of 30,000. Each concert was creatively enhanced with full on-screen video supporting each selection. These concerts showed his breadth of styles from Classical to Gospel to Celtic to Jazz. He is well-known for his ability to improvise “on the spot” favorites from the audience and is at his best when playing Jazz.
Since that third career, he has continued doing what he enjoys the most – “Arranging” music – for all instruments, but especially piano. His arrangements to date, incredibly number over 6,000.
About His Mission
In a nutshell, Jerry committed to using his talents to share his faith, encourage those who need it the most, and inspire the millions who have enjoyed the beauty, and marveled at his talents, whether a handful of people in a retirement village or on network TV where he has reached millions in one performance.
While concertizing abroad, Jerry and his wife Rachel, felt drawn to the people of Africa where the needs are so vast. Through their foundation World Wide Connections they continue an ongoing ministry which has stretched from Zimbabwe to the DRC Congo and Rwanda, touching not only the spiritual, but the social and physical needs of that continent.
About the Man
Jerry loved the outdoors and, for years, enjoyed hiking, hunting and skiing the many Colorado peaks. But don’t be surprised, if looking up close, you see him performing with dirt under his fingernails. In his earlier days, he enjoyed making repairs on his cars, whether replacing a clutch or a total overhaul. During a Minnesota winter, you’d likely find him dropping a low-mileage engine into a not-yet-rusted-out body.
Jerry’s father was a carpenter whose philosophy was “if there’s a way to do-it-yourself, then do it.” So Jerry grew up enjoying the building process, whether patching a wall or adding several rooms to the house they inhabited for half a century.
Being heavy into recording, Jerry decided to build his own studio. Finding an empty lot perched at the very top of a mountain in the Rockies, it was the perfect spot for a world of inspiration. It sported an 11,000 square mile view from Long’s Peak (Estes Park) to Pikes Peak. Since the world was whisper-quiet at 10,000 feet, it may have been the only studio where half the walls were glass.
Who said it wouldn’t work?. Building “Eagles Nest” (a major undertaking at over 5,000 sq ft) was a great bonding experience for Jerry and his two sons for 4 years. He wasn’t just the General Contractor. They built 1,000 sq ft of decks, did the plumbing, heating and electrical, built studio doors, laid the tiles, designed, framed and drywalled the studio. For 25 years his son, Scott, was chief recording engineer while Brad designed the artwork for projects. For a quarter of a century, scores of artists enjoyed the inspiration of recording on Conifer Mountain.
There is an entrepreneurial side to Jerry. He originated the concept of performing with Accompaniment tracks, recording over a thousand titles – majoring in “sound-alike” of the latest religious releases and hottest Pop songs for schools. His tracks have been used on stage, in Miss America Pageants, in churches and schools, and are still used by performers around the globe. Today he enjoys not only writing Arrangements and recording Accompaniment tracks, but also, with son Brad, continues the business of marketing his creative gems to people like yourself. You’ll see them on their YouTube channel, or you can hear each piece, in its entirety, on their Website: