he received a bachelor's from valparaiso in 1972 in piano and organ performance, and then took his master's at syracuse university in music theory. there he studied theory under howard boatright and organ under will headlee, and wrote his thesis on one of the extended piano works of messiaen. following this, ferko served as director of music at various midwestern churches before entering northwestern university. at northwestern he first pursued a ph.d. in music theory but shifted his attention to music composition which he studied under alan stout. during his time at northwestern he worked as a teaching assistant in the school of music and also continued his work as a church musician. in 1982 he began working as a music librarian and continues to work as both a librarian and an archivist. he currently works at the music library at the university of california, berkeley.