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Garrison Keillor, St. Olaf Orchestra to present Young Lutherans Guide to Orchestra

mjc
February 12, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? He?s narrated it many times before, but when writer and humorist Garrison Keillor presents "The Young Lutheran?s Guide to the Orchestra" at St. Olaf College Sunday, Feb. 25, it will be a very special event.

Keillor has presented "The Young Lutheran?s Guide" with the assistance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. Backing him in Skoglund Center Auditorium on Feb. 25, however, will be the St. Olaf Orchestra, under the direction of Philip Brunelle, artistic director of the renowned Plymouth Music Series. The concert also features the St. Olaf Choir.

It is expected to be the first "Young Lutheran?s Guide to the Orchestra" performance with a solely undergraduate ensemble; it almost certainly will be the first time Keillor has presented it with the aid of so many musicians who are themselves young Lutherans. While Keillor?s advice on the proper instruments for Lutherans to play will come too late for the ensemble, organizers hope it will prove instructive to others.

The concert will be at 4 p.m. Feb. 25, in Skoglund Center Auditorium on the St. Olaf campus. A limited number of tickets ($40 and $25; $15 for students) are available by calling (507) 646-3308.

Keillor, who wrote the narration for "The Young Lutheran?s Guide," commissioned Minnesota composer Randall Davidson to write the music. Premiered in 1989 by the Seattle Symphony, it has been recorded on Virgin Classics by the Minnesota Orchestra and broadcast on the Disney Channel.

"God gives some talent, such as comedy, just to name one, or the ability to suffer, and to some persons God has given musical talent, though not to as many as think so," Keillor says in his "Young Lutheran?s Guide" narration. "So for a young Lutheran considering an orchestral career, the first question to ask yourself is, ?Do I have a genuine God-given talent, or do I only seem talented compared to other young Lutherans??

"Because most Lutherans aren?t musicians, they?re choir members. Mostly altos and basses. And they can be sure that their gift is God-given, because who else but God would be interested? Nobody goes into choir music for the wrong reasons. But orchestra... do you know what you?re getting into?"

Keillor, who has been called a modern-day Mark Twain, is the creator of the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," first broadcast in 1974. He also has made the mythical Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon a household name through his broadcasts and through his Grammy-winning recording, Lake Wobegon Days.

Keillor also writes an occasional essay for Time magazine and a weekly column for Salon. He?s produced some story collections, a couple of novels, a couple of children?s books, and wrote a piece for December?s National Geographic, "Looking for Lake Wobegon," with photographs by Richard Olsenius. He is working on a new novel, 1956 Lake Wobegon Summer, as well as a short memoir about St. Paul houses in which he?s lived.

Keillor was born in Anoka, Minn., in 1942, the third of six children. He grew up in Brooklyn Park, attended Anoka High School, and majored in English at the University of Minnesota, where he worked at the Minnesota Daily and the University radio station, KUOM.

He started work at Minnesota Public Radio in 1969, announcing for the early morning shift. In the summer of 1974, "A Prairie Home Companion" started as a Saturday afternoon live variety show, first from Macalester College in St. Paul, then from various auditoriums and theaters, and, starting in 1978, from its present site, the World (renamed Fitzgerald) Theater.

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty complement of approximately 300. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in percentage of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.