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St. Olaf Band to mark century of touring with premiere of works by women composers

By Nancy J. Ashmore
December 30, 2002

When the St. Olaf Band heads east on its "Centennial Tour" in late January, it will perform music as old as it is -- and two commissioned compositions on which the ink has barely dried.

The 91-member ensemble will mark the 100th anniversary of its first concert tour with a six-state tour that will take it to New York City's Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center and throughout the Midwest. On the program are the premieres of works by noted American composers Libby Larsen and Mary Ellen Childs, as well as music for band and pipe organ featuring faculty guest artist John Ferguson, a nationally renowned organist.

Timothy Mahr, a composer who has conducted the band since 1994, received the commissioned works by Twin Cities-based composers Larsen ("Strut") and Childs ("Zephyrus") in December. The commissions were made possible by an endowment honoring the band's longtime director, Miles "Mity" Johnson.

Larsen's piece, "Strut," is "marked by musical elements extracted from the popular-music idiom that are developed with a very engaging rhythmic vitality," Mahr says. Larsen has composed numerous works for orchestra, band, dance, opera, choral, chamber orchestra and solo performance. Her honors include a 1994 Grammy for producing the CD The Art of Arlene Auger, which featured Larsen's "Sonnets from the Portuguese." USA Today selected her opera, Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus, as one of the eight best classical music events of 1990.

Mary Ellen Childs' piece, "Zephyrus," is titled after the Greek god of the "warm and gentle" west wind, Childs says. "I've included on the facing page of the score a lovely quote from Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' about Zephyrus breathing life into all things in the spring."

Childs has been acclaimed for creating bold, kinetic compositions often integrating music, dance and theater. She has created numerous "visual percussion" pieces for her company, CRASH, that embody the concept of music in motion.

"Mary Ellen's new work, her first for concert band, is indeed a fresh breeze in our repertoire," says Mahr. "I know audiences will enjoy it."

Childs, like Larsen, lives and works in Minnesota. In 2001 she received a three-year "New Residencies" award from Meet the Composer Inc. -- one of only five awarded nationally to support partnerships among composers, professional arts institutions and community-based organizations. Last spring, she collaborated with the St. Olaf Art, Dance, Music, Theater and Interdisciplinary Fine Arts departments while in residence as an instructor in music specializing in theory-composition.

The second half of the St. Olaf Band program will open with "American Fanfare" by Sharon Moe Miranda, a noted New York horn player and composer who is a graduate of St. Olaf College. The work was written for the brass section and tympanist of the American Symphony Orchestra in 1971 at the request of its conductor, Leopold Stokowski.

The St. Olaf Band is the oldest musical organization at St. Olaf College, a college internationally renowned for the high caliber of its musical ensembles. The group's first tour, in 1903-04, took it to Iowa. In 1906, it traveled to Norway for a four-week, 30-concert tour that earned it the distinction of being the first American collegiate band to undertake a European concert tour.

The 2003 tour will begin with a performance Jan. 25 at St. Andrew's Church in Mahtomedi, Minn., and will conclude with the traditional free, public "home" concert, Sunday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m., in Boe Memorial Chapel on the St. Olaf campus.

With more than 50 works to his credit, Mahr has had his compositions performed in 20 countries on four continents. He received the 1991 American Bandmasters Association/Ostwald Award for "The Soaring Hawk." Five additional works have been finalists in national band composition contests. He is a recipient of the National Band Association's "Citation of Excellence" and was elected in 1993 to membership in the American Bandmasters Association.

St. Olaf College, a national leader among liberal arts institutions, fosters the development of mind, body and spirit. It is a residential college in Northfield, Minn., and affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The college provides personalized instruction and diverse learning environments, with nearly two-thirds of its students participating in international studies.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.