Music Department

Since 1881, Concordia University’s mission has been teaching and preparing students for careers and vocations that serve The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Music has always been an integral part of that mission. The music department contributes to the spiritual, cultural, artistic, academic and co-curricular aspects to University life on campus. As the campus has grown in scope and size the music department has become more integral to the University mission.

Join Music at CUW!

Opportunities

A broad range of performance opportunities including instrumental, choral, and handbell ensembles is offered within the curriculum. Each year the premier instrumental and choral ensembles take a tour throughout the region or continental United States. International travel has taken band, choir, and handbells to Asia, Europe, and South America.

The CUW Pep Band at the 2018 Concordia Invitational Tournament.

The Kammerchor Ensemble in front of the monument to pope Alexander VII in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

The University Band rehearses for Christmas at Concordia.

The value of Music at CUW

In this “outcome-based” collegiate recruitment market, we know that your college music choices are numerous and varied. Please continue to read about how we continue to “accomplish and expand” our music mission. Your participation and study of the “universal language of music” will be accentuated by the following combination of standards unique to Concordia University Wisconsin. We know this will bring unique “value” to your higher education experience:

Uplifting, nurturing and renowned faculty

Our ensemble conductors, classroom professors and applied studio teachers/performers seek to create a non-competitive, engaging learning environment in order for one to improve performance skills.

Cross-discipline

By the definition of a “Liberal Arts” education, students from a cross-section of majors and minors enroll in music classes in our department which accomplishes a dual purpose: earning academic credits towards the Creative Arts section of the undergraduate Core Curriculum and studying in a field that students find invigorating.

Students of all majors

This is one of the richest parts of our curriculum. The draw of music participants from all university schools including Education, Business, Health and Human Performance, Pharmacy and Arts/Sciences is truly exciting. It exposes each of us to different perspectives on life’s many vocations while demonstrating our collective passion for music.

On the road

You can see the world through music. Our ensembles in all mediums- band, choir, orchestra and hand-bells embark on music performance music tours each year. Band and Choir genres travel internationally every 4 years. To date our departmental ensembles have performed in 42 states (including Hawaii) as well as Europe, South America and several parts of Asia.

Non-music majors

Academic major does not restrict the selection of principal players and soloists in our ensembles. If you have the passion, dedication and talent, you will be featured in concerts at home, on the road or on our many departmental recordings.

Our most important mission

We recognize that music is an undeserved gift from God. With this humbleness we accept our mission and our expansion of the mission to perform music for “Glory to God Alone” - Soli Deo Gloria

Department Chair

Dr. Alexa Doebele

Dr. Alexa Doebele is professor of music, director of choral activities, and director of graduate church music at Concordia University Wisconsin, where she conducts Kammerchor and Selah, in addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in music education, conducting, and choral literature, as well as serving as Interim Department Chair for the 2025-26 school year. She joined the CUW faculty in 2009, having taught previously at the University of Wyoming, the University of Colorado, and Front Range Community College. In addition to her work at Concordia, she also serves as the Adult Choir director at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. She is a ten-year veteran of K-12 music education, most recently at Iver C. Ranum High School in Denver, Colorado. She is a frequent clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor, and is active as an editor of choral music. She is also active as both a solo and choral singer, having appeared with the Milwaukee Chamber Choir, Vox Antiqua, the Milwaukee Choral Artists, the Colorado Conductors’ Chorus, the Ars Nova Singers, St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, the Boulder Chorale, the Littleton Chorale, and the Colorado Symphony Chorus. She completed a bachelor’s degree (double major in vocal performance and German language and literature) at Washington University in St. Louis and her Master of Music Education and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees at the University of Colorado.