by Timothy Robson
Founded in 1912, the St. Olaf Choir from Northfield, Minnesota, has cultivated an international reputation as one of the best collegiate choirs in the United States. With their long-time conductor Anton Armstrong, the choir made a stop at Severance Hall in Cleveland on February 3 as part of their 100th annual tour that also included Carnegie Hall, Yale University, and the University of Illinois, Urbana. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Founded in 1912 in Northfield, Minnesota by F. Melius Christiansen, the St. Olaf Choir began its tradition of East Coast Tours in 1920. Its inaugural itinerary included a concert in Cleveland that inspired Plain Dealer critic James Rogers to write on May 4 of that year, “If there is such a thing as a virtuoso chorus, we have it here.”
On Monday, February 3 at 7:30 pm, Anton Armstrong will lead the 75-voice ensemble in a concert at Severance Hall, a venue which was still in the planning stages in 1920. The performance is the sixth stop on the Choir’s 100th winter tour, which will take the singers to thirteen cities in fourteen days.
“This will be my fourth or fifth appearance with the Choir at Severance, and I love that hall,” Armstrong said in a recent telephone conversation from Northfield. “After our tours I always ask the singers which spaces were best and easiest to sing in, and for the last two tours Severance has eclipsed all the others. I’m a New Yorker, and when I step onstage at Carnegie Hall, I close my eyes and imagine Leontyne Price, or Ella Fitzgerald, or The Beatles. In Cleveland, I’m delighted to add our weave to a great tapestry that includes George Szell and Robert Shaw.” [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
For many decades the legendary St. Olaf Choir, based at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, has been a gold standard by which other American collegiate choirs are often measured. In more than a century since its founding, the choir has had only four directors, beginning with F. Melius Christiansen in 1912, through its current director Anton Armstrong, who this year celebrates his 25th anniversary with the choir. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
When the esteemed St. Olaf Choir from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota sings at Severance Hall on Monday, February 2 at 7:30 pm, the ensemble will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of its conductor, Anton Armstrong. Only the fourth conductor in the choir’s 103-year history, Armstrong is also the first African American to hold that post.
Founded in 1912 by F. Melius Christiansen, St. Olaf Choir introduced the tradition of a cappella singing to a country where glee clubs and oratorio societies were the rule for choral music at the time. Also one of the first to undertake national tours, St. Olaf Choir has hit the road annually since 1920. The choir’s 2015 tour of 18 cities will include such important venues as Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA, Battell Chapel at Yale, Carnegie Hall in New York, Princeton University Chapel, Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
We interviewed St. Olaf Choir conductor Anton Armstrong as a preview to the Choir’s performance at Severance Hall on Monday, February 1. Part two will appear here on Thursday, January 28.
Daniel Hathaway: You sang in the St. Olaf Choir as an undergraduate. Did you every dream that you’d become the fourth conductor of the group?
Anton Armstrong: My friends said I did. I’d always hoped to have had something like the St. Olaf Choir. This is my twentieth year here, and even twenty years ago I’m not sure that I quite fit the profile in all the ways. But certainly it’s been a good twenty-year ride here so far, and I think I have a few more years in me.
DH: How did you end up attending St. Olaf in the first place?
AA: Well, I’m originally from New York and I heard the choir there as a high school student, but I didn’t seriously think of coming this far west. As I looked at schools and at my interests at the time — which were not just music — I had a very strong interest in theology and was thinking I might become a pastor. My mother said I would have made a good pastor — “you’re so sinful you’d understand everybody in your congregation!” I also had an interest at that time in PoliSci. St. Olaf certainly had very strong programs in the religion and music areas — and also a very credible PoliSci program. Soon after I got into school, “Paper Chase” came out with John Houseman, and I thought, no, I don’t want to do that! It scared the heebie jeebies out of me. But I was attracted to St. Olaf because of the community of faith, and because of its superior music program, but I knew at that point that I wasn’t a conservatory type of human being. I had to have more to me and surrounding me than music. What I found at St. Olaf’s then and it’s certainly more true now, is a conservatory level experience but within the context of a liberal arts college. For me, it was a good match. [Read more…]