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OBF 2001
Here are two stories of recent YCA alumni. Let us know if you have a story you'd like to share.
The Experience that Changed Who I Am
By Katie OreskovichCole Blume- YCA alumni
By Fred Crafts
Eugene Register GuardThe Experience that Changed Who I Am
By Katie OreskovichThe summer of 2002 has been the best summer of my life. By the time I went back to school, I had traveled to all four corners fo the United States. The time I spent in Oregon was the most memorable, and the experience left an impression on my soul that changed me.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I auditioned for the Youth Choral Academy (YCA). The YCA is an extension of the Oregon Bach Festival held annually at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The academy is comprised of eighty high school singers from across the nation. I auditioned simply because Bach is my favorite composer. I had no expectations and went into the intense eleven days of singing with an open mind.
The repetoire was immensely challenging. The pieces ranged from Bach to southern gospel. I learned compositions in German, Latin, and Buddhist. The songs themselves were fascinating, but they were only a small portion of my experience. The conductor, Dr. Anton Armstrong, breathed life into each piece, giving them a character separate from the others.
The YCA started each day with movement and vocal technique classes. Being a dancer, the movement class helped me personally connect to the music and was a fabulous way to start my day. After that, we typically rehearsed all day in a full group or in sectionals. During the evening, we attended a concert. I saw the American premiere of Tan Dun's Water Passion, as well as the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Concerto from the Oscar-winning score for the movie. I sat in on a master class with Thomas Quasthoff, the world-famous bass-baritone, and listened to the expertise of Helmuth Rilling on Bach's Christmas Oratorio. I gained a wealth of musical knowledge from the performances, which contributed to the pieces I sang.
Eugene's culture was a learning experience in itself for me. Eugene, a very liberal city, was completely different from Westville, Illinois. I was exposed to open homosexuality, hippies, globalism, mass recycling, tofu, and many other foreign things during my short stay in Oregon. I soon discovered how sheltered my life in Westville was, and I became much more open minded. I am grateful I was given the opportunity and exposure to a different culture. I met many beautiful people who became close friends of mine. I felt internally unlocked and this had a huge impact on my music.
If I could describe the YCA's final concert in one word, it would be phenomenal. It was the most emotionally attached concert I have ever performed. I was so focused and adrenaline-charged that the audience disappeared completely. It was a satisfying ending to the most incredible eleven days of my life. I can not express in words to anyone how the Oregon Bach Festival changed who I am, but it is evident in my abbilities as a musician and as a person. My musical adventure will remain close to my heart forever.
Young tenor comes home - but now he's on tour
By Fred Crafts
The Register-GuardCOLE BLUME is coming home, and he is bringing Anton Armstrong and some 70 friends from Minnesota with him.
"It's come full circle," says Blume, a former South Eugene High School student who is now a sophomore at St. Olaf College, a 3,000-student, Lutheran-funded, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minn.
Blume sings in the school's choir, which will perform here on Wednesday.
"Hult Center is where the St. Olaf seed was planted in me six years ago," Blume says. "Now, I'm coming back, doing what I had hoped to do."
An outstanding young tenor, Blume was just beginning high school when he first encountered Anton Armstrong, the St. Olaf College choral conductor. Armstrong also runs the Oregon Bach Festival's Youth Choral Academy for teen-age singers.
Blume recalls the time he spent under Armstrong's guidance that summer as "magical."
"He just seemed to work so effortlessly with his singers to create this unbelievable product of beautiful and emotional music," Blume recalled by phone from the Minnesota campus. Blume, who has his eye on becoming a high school choral conductor, knew right away that Armstrong was the man he wanted to study with - to learn how he did it. Now, he takes private voice lessons from Armstrong and sings in his choir.
Blume's parents, Dan and Gail Blume, live in Eugene. During his summer vacation last year, Blume starred in "West Side Story" at Lane Community College.
What is there about Armstrong as conductor and teacher that would make a young man from the verdant Willamette Valley travel to the snowy Minnesota, where the winter temperatures often dip below zero? Blume has an instant answer: "His music-making and his humanity. It can serve as a model for lots of people."
"He has a genuine care for not only the music but for the people who are making it. In this relationship, we just both thrive," he says. Although Armstrong can be exacting, Blume says, "With him it doesn't seem like it is work. He makes it feel like we have this inherent ability to make music, and we just do it. This feeling that making music is totally effortless for sure doesn't come without hard work."
"There are definitely rehearsals where you just pound things to make it close to perfect. But he tells us that we're not trying to make perfect music so that we can go sing a concert at the Hult Center and have people look at us as a perfect choir. It's so that our message gets through to the audience without anything in the way.''
For the choir's first Eugene visit, Armstrong has arranged a program of a cappella singing by his 74-voice mixed choir. The first half features works by Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg and others, plus "Praise to the Lord," arranged by choir founder F. Melius Christiansen.
The second half will consist of "Songs of Rejoicing, Lament and Love," exploring human emotion through the works of composers including Edward Elgar and Krzystof Penderecki. The program will conclude with folk hymns and spirituals from Scandinavia and the United States.
The St. Olaf Choir was founded in 1912. Armstrong, himself a St. Olaf alumnus, has been the conductor for 13 years.
Usually alone but sometimes with its orchestra, the choir regularly appears on television (PBS's "St. Olaf Christmas Festival'') and radio (National Public Radio's "Performance Today'') and makes CDs. Its 18th recording, "The Celestial Country," was released just two weeks ago.
The choir, which performs entirely from memory, is on a 16-city swing through the Western states, concluding Feb. 16. Typically, the choir's annual tours attract a combined audience of 25,000. The choir also has toured in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Why tour? Armstrong has an up-front answer: "The choir has great art to present, but it also has a great message of faith and hope to present."
"We take them on the road to hopefully transform the lives of the people who hear them. Most people come to hear great art, but they also will hear a very powerful message that I think people need. They need a message of hope. They need words of comfort. They need words that will show them that we aren't in the worst of times."
"It's a message of faith that we bring, but, I think, it's a very inclusive message. It's not just for a Lutheran crowd."
What the audience will hear, Armstrong believes, is a choir that makes "honest, heartfelt singing at a high artistic level."