Dr. Ring has been a professor at Olivet Nazarene University in the School of Music since 2019. He loves working with students in the classroom and on the stage. He teaches music theory, aural skills, organ, composition, and piano, and he’s active as an accompanist for student performances. Dr. Ring is also the Associate for Music Ministry at the First Presbyterian Church of River Forest, where he serves with Director of Music Ministries and Olivet alumna Jane Holstein.
Dr. Ring recorded his solo organ album “Fanfare for a New Century: The Concert Organ Works of Aaron David Miller” (2022) on the 2010 Ruffatti organ in the Betty and Kenneth Hawkins Centennial Chapel at Olivet. A published composer, his debut book of organ arrangements “Praise to the King” (2024) is published with The Lorenz Corporation. He has been featured twice on the radio program Pipedreams (Jan. 2019 & Oct. 2023) and has performed at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany as well as in the Netherlands, Brazil, and across the Midwest. Dr. Ring also runs the ever-growing YouTube channel “Josh Ring,” where he teaches music theory, ear training, and music technology.
As an organist, Dr. Ring won the 2019 Organ Scholar Competition at the Immanuel Lutheran Church of Evanston, IL, won first place in the 2018 Young Organists Scholarship Competition from the Fox Valley American Guild of Organists (AGO), is a 2016 recipient of the E. Power Biggs Fellowship Award from the Organ Historical Society (OHS), and was a recipient of the Kay Hotchkiss Scholarship from the Rockford AGO every year from 2016 to 2021. Dr. Ring was also a quarter finalist in the 2019 Mikael Tariverdiev International Organ Competition. While a student at Olivet he was also the recipient of the Walter B. Larsen Award & Naomi Larsen Scholarship, the School of Music’s highest honor.
Dr. Ring was chosen as a performer for the AGO Student Commissioning Project, where he collaborated with composer Joshua Malavé on a new composition for organ solo. In 2018 Dr. Ring premiered Boricua written by Malavé and performed it numerous times across the Midwest. (View the performance here.)
Dr. Ring earned his DMA in Organ Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa (UI), where he also earned his Master’s of Arts in Organ Performance. Studying organ with Gregory Hand, Dr. Ring was a recipient of the Rahn and Frawley Organ Fellowship from the UI School of Music. He also earned his Master’s of Music in Composition with David Maki and his Performer’s Certificate in Organ with James Russell Brown, both from Northern Illinois University. He also received his Bachelor’s of Music, summa cum laude, from ONU in Music Composition with Karen Ball and Piano Performance with Gerald Anderson. While at Olivet he also studied organ with Timothy Nelson and guitar with Freddie Franken.
His past organ teachers include Melanie Sigafoose, James Russell Brown, and Timothy Nelson, and his piano teachers include JeongSoo Kim, Karen Ball, Gerald Anderson, Ovid Young, and Brenda Conroy. He has also studied composition with David Maki, Ted Hatmaker, Robert Fleisher, and Karen Ball.
In his free time, Dr. Ring loves spending as much time as possible with his wife, their two sons, and their dog Poppy. He also takes great pleasure in being the unofficial cookie tester for his wife’s home baking business, Cape Cod Cookies (follow her on Facebook). More information, compositions, and recordings can be found at www.JoshRing.com.