Radio personality Garrison Keillor, accompanied by his long-time collaborator Philip Brunelle, will join the St. Olaf Choir and Orchestra on Sunday, February 25.

The main piece, "The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra," is a 20-minute Keillor original written in collaboration with composer Randall Davidson. It premiered in 1989 with the Seattle Symphony, and has since been to places like Chicago, Los Angeles, and London. This will be the first performance where the audience and musicians are comprised mostly of young Lutherans; this is his second visit to St. Olaf (the first was almost 15 years ago).

Keillor and Brunelle put together the "Young Lutheran's." program themselves, and approached the school with the idea, not the other way around. Brunelle, artistic director of the Plymouth Music Series and a St. Olaf regent, will be conducting the Orchestra through seven of the 13 pieces in the concert. The other six put the spotlight on Keillor and a piano. He's even changed the title of one of his monologues from "Second Methodist Church, Ottumwa, Iowa" to "Zion Lutheran, Dundas, Minnesota." The St. Olaf Choir will be featured on 4 songs, and another, "Ein Feste Burg is the Lutheran Heart," calls for audience participation. The show will be opened with the more familiar Overture to "La Gazza Ladra," which Steve Amundson of the Olaf music department suggested due to the Orchestra's familiarity with it; they've been playing it at every stop of their tour.

Keillor, best known as the creator of "A Prairie Home Companion," was born in Anoka, Minnesota in 1942. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1966 and then went on to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969. He did some writing off and on while hosting a morning show, and then in 1974 created the Saturday afternoon live variety show "A Prairie Home Companion." The show provides a forum for the Keillor's fabulous fictional world of Lake Wobegon, a small town in Minnesota where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

Keillor has also completed his college goal of supporting himself as a writer, with occasional essays in Time, a few books, and most recently, an article in National Geographic. His goal is to someday write a full-length play.

The two renowned artists are performing pro-bono. All proceeds of the concert will go towards the Fram! Fram! Forward St. Olaf Campaign. The Fram! Fram! Campaign has set its goal at $125 million, and is at $108 million at last count. $34.5 million is for capital improvements, including Buntrock Commons and the new dance and art center. $74 million goes towards endowments, which becomes investments for the college to simply use the interest from and never touch the principal. This fund allows the college to improve the faculty and defray student tuition costs.

Tickets for students, at $15, will be sold in front of Stav Hall on February 15, 16, and 17. Tickets can also be found in the stewardship office on the third floor of the Administration Building. Benefactor tickets, offered first to parents and alum in the December campus magazine, went for $40. Patron tickets, also sold in the magazine but recently offered to the public through ads in papers in the Cities, are going for $25. The reserved student seats are in the upper middle sections of Skoglund Auditorium.