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Annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival held this weekend

By Le Ann Finger '85
December 1, 2004

It began as a "Christmas Program" given by the St. Olaf Choral Union on Dec. 17, 1912, in Hoyme Memorial Chapel on campus. It was held on a Tuesday evening exclusively for the St. Olaf community, and the choral ensemble sang its first three numbers in Norwegian.

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The theme of this year's Christmas Festival is "Child of Light, Be Born in Us."
This year the 93rd annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival will be performed on Dec. 2, 3 and 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Skoglund Auditorium and Sunday, Dec. 5, at 3:30 p.m. Although tickets are no longer available for the performances this weekend, Minnesota Public Radio will carry the Sunday broadcast live on 89.3 FM and 99.5 FM (KSJN), as well as on the classical music stations of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR).

More than 550 students participate in the festival, including five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra. In addition to the St. Olaf Choir, the Viking Chorus, Chapel Choir, Manitou Singers and the St. Olaf Cantorei perform. The festival conductors are Steven Amundson, St. Olaf Orchestra; Anton Armstrong '78, St. Olaf Choir; John Ferguson, St. Olaf Cantorei; Sigrid Johnson, Manitou Singers and Robert Scholz '61, Chapel Choir and Viking Chorus. This will be the final year Scholz will be directing, as he has announced his retirement, following 38 years of service to the St. Olaf music department.

For the past 92 years, the St. Olaf Christmas Festival has signaled the beginning of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season. It is one of the longest-running observances of its kind in the world today, meticulous in its construction of how the message of Christ's birth is conveyed. The festival continues as an outgrowth of Christian conviction and an expression of the rich musical heritage at St. Olaf, a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The creative team responsible for bringing the St. Olaf Christmas Festival to thousands each year begins work on the festival almost as soon as the previous year's offering ends. In mid-December the audiotapes are edited, and by the second week in January, the team has begun to work on the next year's concert. Once a theme is chosen, the conductors search for the hymns and for larger choral pieces that a mass choir can perform. Then they look at the more individualized presentations for the orchestra and each of the five choirs, evaluating the pacing and thematic relationships.

The St. Olaf Orchestra first participated in 1922 when the festival was held in the college gymnasium. The closing number, "Beautiful Savior," first appeared on the program in 1924. Audience participation became a regular practice in the late 1920s. In 1930, St. Olaf sophomore Ruth Paysen Halvorson '32 provided the set design for the Christmas Festival. The depression-era budget allowed for two tall, skinny fir trees on either side of the stage, decorated with tiny stars that women students cut from white cotton sheets.

Today, thanks to technology and the international reputation of the college's music ensembles, the annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival is heard, literally, around the world.

The Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) production of the 2001 St. Olaf Christmas Festival, Christmas at St. Olaf, can be seen again this year on PBS stations nationwide on Dec. 24 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 25 at 8 a.m. This is the sixth national television production of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival over the past three decades. Check local listings as dates and times may vary.

This is the third year that the Armed Forces Network (AFN) will air the television broadcast of Christmas at St. Olaf to an international audience on Christmas Day. The program will be seen in 178 countries by a potential audience of 800,000 U.S. service men and women stationed overseas. AFN broadcasts television programming to U.S. military ships, bases, Department of Defense civilian installations, U.S. embassies and U.S. consulates.

Contact Le Ann Finger at 507-786-3416 or finger@stolaf.edu.