APPLETON, WI -- If you don't catch the Luther College Nordic Choir's 7 p.m. performance at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel Sunday, it will be another four years before the choir makes another appearance in these parts.
The premier touring ensemble based in Decorah, Iowa, is one of the top a cappella college choirs in the nation, and has a major national tour every year in a four-year rotation. This year, the Nordic Choir will perform in five Midwestern states. Next year it will be out to the East Coast and down to Florida, and the following year it will travel through the middle states down to Texas. The fourth rotation is the West Coast and California.
"They've got a great sound, as do all the choirs from those Norwegian Lutheran colleges," said Appleton's Walt Rugland, who catches a Christmas performance about every other year at the college's home base. "(The choir's) religious view is always in their minds so they can sing strongly religious pieces as well as secular pieces."
Rugland comes from a family of Luther College graduates, following his great-grandfather and father. He graduated in 1959. He has been affiliated with the school nearly as long as its previous conductor, Weston Noble, who stepped down as conductor last year after 57 years of service. Noble was one of two guest conductors from Luther College at the 2004 Fox Cities Choral Music Festival held at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center.
Dr. Craig Arnold, a professor of music at Luther and former faculty member from 1980 to 1983, returned to the college last year to assume the conductor's position vacated by Noble.
"It is a very active performing collegiate a cappella choir," said Arnold of the Nordic Choir, which every third year also takes an international trip with the college orchestra. This spring they will perform in Italy, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.
Luther College has an enrollment of 2,600 students. More than 500 are involved in the school's eight choirs. Arnold said between 250 and 300 sophomore through senior students try out each year for Nordic Choir, which this year was whittled down to 72 students.
"All the choirs are very good, but (the Nordic Choir) is special both in its history but also its pursuit of excellence," said Ben Larson, a 21-year-old senior from La Crosse who has been in the choir for three years. "And it is almost second to none in its drive to be the best that it can be and be very technical but also very spiritual in the way that it approaches music."
This is Larson's third year with the choir, which he said is good preparation for his next venture, attending Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa to study to become a pastor.
The Nordic Choir performs a variety of classic and sacred choral literature including several compositions from the 20th century to new three pieces as well as traditional Luther College repertoire. The music was one reason Barry Hoff of Hortonville sang with the choir from his sophomore year in the fall of 1980 to his senior year in the spring of 1983.
"I don't expect to ever repeat that quality of music with any choral group for the rest of my life," Hoff said. "It's very enjoyable for me personally to sing in a group like Nordic because it is almost exclusively sacred music and most of it is done a cappella."
Reprinted with permission from the Appleton Post Crescent: http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060128/APC05/601280574/1890/APClife
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