Arts & Aesthetics
St Olaf Christmas Festival
by Jeff Miller
One of the events I look forward to every Christmas season is the Christmas Festival at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. It is simply one of the finest presentations of Advent and Christmas music in the country. It was designed as a worship service and employs several different choirs, orchestra and wind ensemble. The recordings are available from St. Olaf’s site, for any interested.
This year’s concert can be heard here. I would encourage any who enjoy quality music- especially seasonal music- to check this out.
Posted by Jeff Miller at December 18, 2007 12:53 PM
hey jeff, i once saw a live broadcast of Prairie Home Companion at St. Olaf’s college. They had an amazing choir there…but I don’t think it was their full choir.
They have some 4-6 choirs on campus and a long history of quality musicianship. There are perhaps some better choral programs from time to time, but I don’t know of any who are as consistently at/near the top of the heap.
You can catch an hour long condensed version of this presentation on APT - Wednesday night (Dec 19th) at 9:00 PM. I saw some of it last year and it was beautiful and very inspiring. They broadcast it in high def with surround sound for that extra punch!
Jeff, I listened to the entire program yesterday. It is wonderful and thanks for the link.