Jay Evard Welch (November 6, 1925 – December 15, 2008) was an American musician who was a music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (MTC), a longtime University of Utah (U of U) professor, founder of the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus (MYSC), Jay Welch Chorale and the Salt Lake Repertory Orchestra.
He married Marcelle Beecher in Salt Lake City on March 21, 1951, and together they had six daughters.
He continued his music studies at the Paris Conservatory of Music, graduated with a master's degree in composition from Mills College in Oakland, California, and earned a Ph.D. in 1959 from the U of U, where he taught for 39 years before retiring in 1993.
In 1957, Welch was named assistant conductor to Richard P. Condie, the music director of the MTC.
In 1974, succeeded Condie as the MTC's music director, a position he held for only six months, due to an unexpected illness.