John Dawe

#ChristmasChoralCountdown Day 4 -- Vivaldi's Gloria at the Kennedy Center

Day 3 of the #ChristmasChoralCountdown brings a familiar work for #PMEAd9 chorus auditionees for decades, presented here by the great St. Olaf Massed Choirs under the direction of Anton Armstrong. The work was published by Augsburg in 1925. Back in 1901, "Wake, Awake" arranger F. Melius Christiansen was recruited by St. Olaf College president John N. Kildahl. The St. Olaf Choir was founded as an outgrowth of the St. John's Lutheran Church Choir in Northfield. For the next 30... years, Christiansen led the St. Olaf Choir, striving for perfect intonation, blend, diction and phrasing. He was a skilled conductor, directing bands and choirs alike. Christiansen's legacy included his son Paul who led the famous Concordia Choir (continuing under Rene Clausen, now under the baton of Michael Culloton). The fictional Minnesota city of St. Olaf was the hometown of Rose Nylund in the TV show The Golden Girls. In the TV show the fictional city's sister city was St. Gustav, Minnesota, a nod to Gustavus Adolphus College, in nearby St. Peter, Minnesota. Betty White, the actress who played Rose, visited St. Olaf and was given an honorary membership in St. Olaf's chapter of the theater honorary society. Learn More / Related Articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Olaf_Choir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Olaf_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Melius_Christiansen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concordia_Choir

Love me some BYU Vocal Point and this year's holiday special is a pretty magical addition to the #ChristmasChoralCountdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE5DhSD8v2M The #ChristmasChoralCountdown is back starting with A la Nanita Nana from Carols and Lullabyes: Christmas in the Southwest arr. Conrad Susa. This is just one of ten of the most beautiful carols of the Spanish-speaking world, artfully arranged and performable either individually or as a suite. Titles included are: Oh, mi Belen (Biscayan); El Desembre Congelat (Catalonian); Alegria (Puerto Rican); A la Nanita Nana (Spanish); Las Posad...as (Spanish); Campana sobre Campana (Andalucian); En Belen Tocan a Fuego (Castilian); El Noi de la Mare (Catalonian); Chiquirriquitin (Andalucian) and El Rorro (Mexican). Conrad Stephen Susa (April 26, 1935 November 21, 2013) was an American composer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Pittsburgh), Susa studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, the fictitious spoof character created by American composer Peter Schickele. The curator performed this full work in approx. 1997(?) under the baton of Dr. Alan Baker at Wilkes University.