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Music of memory and mourning at core of Nov. 6 Founders Day faculty recital at St. Olaf

Nancy J. Ashmore
October 31, 2002

A St. Olaf Founders Day faculty recital by David Carter, cello, Andrea Een, violin, Nancy Paddleford, piano, and JoAnn Polley, clarinet, will draw to a close a St. Olaf conference on “mourning and memory.” Held Wed., Nov. 6, at 8:15 p.m. in Urness Recital Hall in Christiansen Hall of Music, the recital will be preceded at 7:30 p.m. by a concert preview by Een in the same venue. The events are free and open to the public.

The recital and preview are part of the conference “Mourning and Memory: Jewish and Christian Perspectives,” being held at St. Olaf College from All Saint's Day on Friday, Nov. 1, to Founders Day on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

“The theme of ‘Memory and Mourning’ will be heard in two masterpieces of chamber music,” says Een: “The Baal Shem Suite for Violin and Piano” of Ernst Bloch (inspired by the founder of the Hassidic Judaic tradition of Eastern Europe) and the “Quartet for the End of Time” by Olivier Messiaen (based on the 10th Chapter of the Book of Revelations). “Written and first performed in a POW camp in Silesia during World War II, the ‘Quartet’ creates a rich musical portrait of the Apocalypse and the eternal bliss of heaven,” Een says.

“Religious traditions shape both how we mourn and how we remember,” says L. De Ane Lagerquist, associate professor of religion and chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf. “These events offer opportunities to explore the resources Judaism and Christianity offer to the common human experience of loss.”

With this series, St. Olaf launches the Ditmanson Program in Religion and the Humanities, an act of memory in honor of Harold Ditmanson, long-time member of the St. Olaf Religion Department and active participant in Jewish-Christian dialogue. For more on the events of the conference, visit www.stolaf.edu/events/ditmanson/

The performers at the Nov. 6 concert are accomplished musicians, as well as teachers of music:

  • Associate Professor of Music David Carter, a finalist in the Emanuel Feuermann Cello Competition, performs solo recitals and chamber music throughout the Midwest.

  • Andrea Een is a member of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra and the Plymouth Festival Orchestra and a frequent chamber music performer on violin and viola.

  • Nancy Paddleford, an associate professor of music, is an active chamber and solo recitalist who has performed twice at the International Festival of Music in Costa Rica.

  • Professor of Music Jo Ann Polley performs frequently in solo and chamber music recitals on clarinet, basset horn and bass clarinet. She serves as a substitute player for the Minnesota Orchestra and performs summers with the Minneapolis Pops Orchestra.

    • Contact Nancy J. Ashmore at 507-786-3315 or ashmore@stolaf.edu.