Joel Speerstra studied art with Loretta Grellner of the Chicago Institute of Art. He is active as an instrument builder, performer and musicologist. An organ student of William Porter and David Boe at Oberlin Conservatory, he graduated as both a Watson Scholar and a DAAD Fellow, allowing him to study organ and clavichord with Harald Vogel at the North German Organ Academy, and instrument building with John Barnes, the former Curator of the Edinburgh Russell Collection of Keyboard Instruments. He has also studied organ with Yuko Hayashi and harpsichord with Lisa Goode Crawford.

His doctoral project at Göteborg University led to the re-construction of the Gerstenberg pedal clavichord reported on in the 2004 publication from Rochester University Press: Bach and the Pedal Clavichord: An Organist's Guide. Similar instruments produced by Speerstra have now been placed in leading conservatories in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He has taught at the School of Music in Göteborg, Eastern Michigan University, and served as guest professor of organ and musicology at the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 2004. He is a frequent recitalist in Europe and the United states and has given lecture-recitals for the British, German, and Boston Clavichord Societies, as well as the International Clavichord Symposia in Magnano, Italy.
Speerstra is a faculty member of the regular organ academies held in Leufsta bruk and Göteborg in Sweden as well as the Organ Academy in Smarano, Italy. He has recently made the first recording of the complete trio sonatas of J.S. Bach on the pedal clavichord for a forthcoming CD.