The St. Olaf Choir and conductor Anton Armstrong announce 18-concert national winter tour, including concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh & Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis
(Northfield, Minn.) – The world-renowned St. Olaf Choir and conductor Anton Armstrong, who is now celebrating his 25th year as the ensemble’s conductor, launch their annual national tour on January 24, presenting 18 concerts in 13 states through February 15, 2015.
The St. Olaf Choir and Armstrong present a concert at Severance Hall (11001 Euclid Avenue) in Cleveland set for 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 2, 2015.
Throughout its 103-history the St. Olaf Choir has been credited with advancing unaccompanied choral music at the highest level, and this tour presents the ensemble in some of America’s finest concert halls: Emory University’s Schwartz Concert Hall in Atlanta, New York’s Carnegie Hall (where the ensemble first performed in 1920), Severance Hall in Cleveland and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Tickets are now on sale, and links to concert halls are available online at stolafchoir.com.
Founded in 1912 by F. Melius Christiansen at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., the St. Olaf Choir is internationally recognized as a creative force behind America’s a cappella choral tradition.
“The St. Olaf Choir is one of America’s pace-setting choral ensembles,” Armstrong says. “It is a collegiate choir that sings at a professional level. What our musicians may lack in the full maturity of a 30- to 40-year-old singer, they make up for in artistry, particularly through their attention to nuance of sound and beauty of text. Hearing the St. Olaf Choir is more than just a musical experience. Our singers touch the hearts and souls of our listeners through body, mind, spirit and voice.”
Joining the St. Olaf Choir and Armstrong on their tour is violinist and violist Charles Gray, professor of music at St. Olaf College. A former member of the Rochester Philharmonic in New York and the Grand Rapids Symphony in Michigan, Gray is currently a substitute member of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Highlights for the 2015 tour program include:
• Premiere performances of works by Rosephanye Powell (With What Shall I Come for violin and chorus) and Kim André Arnesen (Flight Song for piano and chorus) – presented as gifts from the composers and dedicated to the St. Olaf Choir in honor of Armstrong’s 25th anniversary as its conductor.
• Music of the 16th and 17th centuries including Robert Stone’s The Lord’s Prayer, William Byrd’s I Will Not Leave You Comfortless and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fürchte dich nicht (BWV 228).
• Leonard Bernstein’s Sanctus (from Mass). “Since we will be visiting some of his haunts on the East Coast during this tour, it’s fitting that we present the music of Bernstein,” Armstrong says.
• The Lord is Everlasting God by Kenneth Jennings, the St. Olaf Choir’s third conductor who celebrates his 90th birthday this year. “I consider this to be one of his most beautiful pieces,” Armstrong says. The program also includes Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying arranged by the St. Olaf Choir’s founder and first conductor, F. Melius Christiansen.
• Works by contemporary composers are showcased in the program’s third section: Anthony Bernarducci’s Veni Creator Spiritus; Rosephanye Powell’s With What Shall I Come; Eric Whitacre’s Kala, Kalla (Five Hebrew Love Songs) for violin, chorus and piano; Daniel Elder’s Lullaby (Three Nocturnes); Kim André Arnesen’s Flight Song; and Sarah Hopkins’ Past Life Melodies, a work that features harmonic overtone singing.
• Stephen Paulus’ Pilgrims’ Hymn (The Three Hermits). “We will be performing this work in memory of Steve – who we lost this year,” Armstrong says. “We took this work on tour to the United Kingdom in 2009 to represent the best of American music, and it became one of our most beloved pieces.”
• A new setting of This Little Light of Mine, by Anthony Leach, a professor of music at Penn State. “This arrangement for piano and chorus speaks powerfully in a language understood by today’s communities of color,” Armstrong says. “When I first heard this piece at the 10th World Choral Symposium in Seoul, South Korea, this past year, I knew that I needed to present it with the St. Olaf Choir.” The final section of the tour program also features L.L. Fleming’s arrangement of Give Me Jesus, and Moses G. Hogan, Jr.’s The Battle of Jericho.
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About St. Olaf Choir
After F. Melius Christiansen founded the St. Olaf Choir in 1912, he was credited with contributing to the transformation of American choral music. He and the St. Olaf Choir transcended America’s limited early 20th century choral tradition with the introduction of a cappella singing of the highest level, creating a model for the widespread choral growth that followed.
“F. Melius opened a whole new paradigm that never existed before,” Anton Armstrong says. “Prior to the St. Olaf Choir, glee clubs and oratorio societies were the choirs of the day. A cappella singing in America was new for its time. The St. Olaf Choir helped establish what we know today as the parish choirs that are now a regular part of many worship services across the nation.”
The St. Olaf Choir has a long history of innovation. It became one of the first to tour the nation regularly starting in 1920. The St. Olaf Choir also began recording in the 1920s and performed on air when radio was in its infancy. The annual “St. Olaf Christmas Festival” has aired on national and international radio and television for more than 30 years, and continues to serve as a prototype for these types of holiday broadcasts.
On Dec. 23, 2013, PBS premiered Christmas in Norway with the St. Olaf Choir, which was filmed at the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway in June 2013, and won two regional Emmy® Awards this year.
In 2007 the St. Olaf choral ensembles achieved another major milestone when Christmas at St. Olaf: Where Peace and Love and Hope Abide was simulcast to more than 180 movie theaters across the United States on Dec. 2, 2007. The PBS premiere of the one-hour highlights program produced by Twin Cities Public Television aired on Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007, and reached 2.5 million people. Four years later the 100th St. Olaf Christmas Festival was simulcast to 372 movie theaters across America.
The singers commit to balancing full course loads with rehearsals five days a week; choir members perform concerts entirely from memory. Anton Armstrong has conducted the St. Olaf Choir since 1990. There have been only three conductors of the St. Olaf Choir before Armstrong: Kenneth Jennings, Olaf Christiansen and the founder and first conductor F. Melius Christiansen.
The St. Olaf Choir has also been featured in a number of symphonic collaborations including, most recently, performances of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem for Voices, Orchestra and Organ, Opus 9, with the Minnesota Orchestra under the baton of Osmo Vänskä in April 2010 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. The St. Olaf Choir has also performed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner, Neemi Jarvi, Sir David Willcocks, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Andreas Delfs, Helmuth Rilling and the late Robert Shaw.
Touring, recording and broadcasts are all major components in the artistic life of the St. Olaf Choir. The St. Olaf Choir has performed for capacity audiences in major concert halls across the nation and overseas since 1920. Annual tours attract audiences totaling 25,000. Recent tours have included a 2013 tour to Norway, a 2009 tour to England, Wales and Ireland, a 2005 tour of Norway, a 2001 European tour including Paris, Prague, Vienna and Berlin, and a 1997 tour to Australia and New Zealand.