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Long-time St. Olaf voice teacher Lenore Schmidt dies

mjc
February 3, 2001

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? Lenore Schmidt, who taught voice to hundreds of students during her 28 years as a St. Olaf College music faculty member, died Friday, Feb. 2, in Northfield Hospital. She was 90.

Services will be Monday, Feb. 5, at 11 a.m. in St. John?s Lutheran Church, Northfield, Minn., the Rev. Joseph Crippen officiating. Visitation will be at the church one hour before the service, with interment in Oaklawn Cemetery, Northfield. Arrangements are by Benson Funeral Home, Northfield.

She taught voice either privately or as a college faculty member for 41 years ? from 1935 until her retirement from St. Olaf in 1976. Her voice teaching career began in Shawano, Wis., and continued in New Richmond, Wis., where two of her voice students won national prizes. She then taught at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, where her husband, Frederick, was chair of the music department. In 1948 she and Frederick moved to Northfield, where she began teaching voice at St. Olaf and her husband began work as manager of the St. Olaf Choir, the St. Olaf Band and the St. Olaf Orchestra ? continuing the legacy of his father, Paul G. Schmidt, a long-time St. Olaf faculty member and music organizations manager.

Many of Mrs. Schmidt?s students won national awards and became noted professional singers and outstanding teachers of music. Many more have been active volunteers in the cultural lives of communities across the nation. Her students received not only superb technical training, but learned to love great musical literature and musicians.

Generations of her students fondly remember her post-recital receptions in the Schmidt?s Northfield home. Her enthusiasm and affection for her students moved many of them to become life-long friends, and she followed their musical careers attentively.

Lenore Swenson Schmidt was born Sept. 27, 1910, in Deary, Idaho, the daughter of Pastor Johann Swenson and Jennie Quarberg Swenson. She graduated from Mondovi (Wis.) High School and attended St. Olaf College, graduating in 1931. She was a member of the St. Olaf Choir, traveling to Europe with the choir in 1930. She also played leading roles in Ibsen?s Doll House and Sigurd Jorsalfar, and frequently sang on WCAL, the college?s public radio station.

She attended graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and at Carnegie Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. She studied voice with many noted instructors, including the famous Dutch teacher Dr. E. R. Freni, William Vennard at the University of Southern California, Madame Re Koster of Paris, internationally-known voice coach and accompanist Coenraad Bos, and Hermanus Baer of Northwestern University.

In 1935 she married Frederick A. Schmidt. The Schmidts traveled extensively, visiting numerous centers of music, including Bayreuth, Germany, site of the Wagner Operas; the Baths of Caracalla, Rome; and Verona, Salzburg, Vienna and others.

She was a member of the St. Olaf Alumni Board from 1945 to 1947. She held several offices in the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and coordinated the association?s national convention in Minneapolis. She was the talent judge for the Miss Minnesota contest in St. Paul for two years and was a judge for the Schubert Club Voice Competition in Minneapolis. She served on the Women?s Missionary Federation?s Women?s Hour radio committee for WCAL; was a member of the Northfield Hospital Auxiliary Board and a charter member of the Northfield Arts Guild; and since 1951 was a member of Chapter G, PEO. She was .a long-time member of St. John?s Lutheran Church, where she and her husband worked with outreach groups, and where she sang in the choir for 20 years.

She was preceded in death by her parents; two brothers, Adolph and Arthur; and one sister, Constance Jones. She is survived by her husband, Frederick of Northfield; by her son, David Frederick Schmidt of Tacoma, Wash.; and by her grandson, Ryan Schmidt.

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