School Spotlight: Northfield High School Concert Choir

Today's feature audio comes from the Big 9 Conference Music Festival, May 1, 2015 in Mankato. The choir is led by director Kyle Eastman.

• Swedish hymn arr. Robert Scholz: Children of the Heavenly Father

1. Spiritual arr. Josephine Poelinitz: City Called Heaven, Soloists: Adrian Sullivan and Julia Knutson

Bonus online track:

• Carly Simon, arr. Craig Hella Johnson: Let the River Run

Vocal music has been a tradition at Northfield High School (NHS) since 1937. Besides the 64-voice Concert Choir, the premier choral ensemble at NHS, there are three other curricular choirs and three extra-curricular choirs. In recent years, the Concert Choir has performed around the country at various choral festivals, including Dorian Music Festival at Luther College, the American Choral Directors Association of MN and the St. Olaf Choral Festival. They also tour annually and collaborate with area and regional high schools, most recently in Princeton and Hutchinson, to present joint concerts and promote choral music education to those communities. Every third year they tour nationally.

Meeting every day for 50 minutes, the Concert Choir studies literature ranging from Renaissance polyphony to contemporary compositions. This year in particular, the choir has been celebrating the community of Northfield and championing local music. The town is blessed with many composers, and because of this, the choir has had the opportunity to work directly with them. The concert that they presented at the 2015 MMEA mid-winter clinic, and at the Big 9 Festival was almost exclusively made up of Northfield composers, including Kenneth and Carolyn Jennings, Daniel Kallman, and Christopher Aspaas.

"The tours and collaborations with area high schools have been a great experience for the kids in promoting their art form, and building community within the ensemble," says director Kyle Eastman. That bonding experience has no doubt contributed to their dedication and the sound that they produce. Mr. Eastman sent an editorial from January 2012 from Southernminn.com, a local online news publication, that he believes reflects many comments he has received about the choir, and best "sums up the impact that music education can have on our students, and the greater audience." The author, Dr. Marshall Hansen of Northfield, attended a holiday concert of NHS Concert Choir by himself on a whim and was "awestruck" by the "astonishing" performance. He left the concert filled with "renewed hope for the world's future" due to the "near-perfect voices of so many of our town's sons and daughters singing well-chosen, incredibly beautiful music. That these students, "teenagers, full of energy, hormones and attitudes," could perform at such a high level moved him deeply, giving him food for thought for several days after.

You can read Dr. Hansen's inspired comments in full here.

The Concert Choir will round off the 2014-15 school year with their Spring Finale Concert on Saturday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Northfield Middle School Auditorium. If you're attending the Minnesota Twins game on Sunday, May 17 you will be able to hear the choir singing "God Bless America."

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