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Making Music Together
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A bit chilly for $500
Playing in the Bagpipe Band with my best friend and wearing a uniform that cost $500. Marching in the Torchlight Parade in below-zero weather in a kilt.
Mary Lou Hanson Moeller
Our version of Par Four
As a freshman in 1957, Nancy Luxon Tjornhom ’56 thought we should form a female quartet similar to the male "Par Four". Nancy was the leader and other members were Joann Pennington (Perkins), Audrey Monsen ’56 and myself. What fun and we were rather nervous if we appeared on the same program as the Par Four. We sang for homecoming, nursing homes and for anyone in the dorms that would listen to us! I don't even remember what we called ourselves.
Marilyn Winter Hill
One regret
I do regret that I did not sing in the Mac choir.
Nancy Knauff Waller
The “big” choir
I enjoyed singing in the "big" choir.
Harris W. Waller
Singing Stravinsky’s “Persephone”
My best memory of Macalester was singing with the Minnesota Symphony in the production of "Persephone" by Igor Stravinsky under the direction of Anton Dorati at Northrup on the U. of Minn. Minneapolis campus. Ian Morton prepared our small choral group from Mac. It included costumes and dance and was well done.
Barbara Lou Tjornhom Nelson
My sliding slide on Snelling
I was a member of the pep band and a very embarrassing memory was of losing the slide of my trombone on Snelling Avenue during a trip to Hamline to play, a few days before a football game.
Jerry Meigs
Our “Housemother” in Worthington
The band was on a good will Macalester promotional trip around small southern Minnesota towns during our freshman year. We played concerts and stayed with church members. Jerry Meigs ’57, Marge McGee and I were part of that group. There was a lot of fun and music on the bus. When we got to Worthington, Marge and I were housed with a woman who felt she was our housemother in the strictest sense. After a band concert we spent time with a high school friend of mine from Alexandria and went to a movie with Jerry. When we returned after hours to our residence we received a stern lecture and a very cold shoulder. We probably went to our room and giggled.
Mary Jane Hollingsworth Lee
Three magical musical moments
The highlights of my Mac "career" included several musical moments. The first was when, as a freshman, the "Kirk Hall Opera Company" put on a show at the student union. Buzz Wildung played the House Mother, I played Juliet and I can't recall the rest of the cast. I "eloped" from the balcony and, having been subjected to "inappropriate" behavior on the part of my enamorate as I descended the ladder, wound up my long handled purse when I reached the stage and hit him! That performance with its spontaneous ad lib ranks as my most aberrant moment.
The second was when the Little Choir went on tour to Southern Minnesota under the sponsorship of several Presbyterian churches. In Austin, while many choir members stayed in nice homes, some of us stayed in a cheap hotel with ropes tied to the radiators for fire escapes et al. Train crews, coming from the depot across the street, were its principal customers. The rooms were barren, the sheets were clean but had holes. Yet the owners’ — who were church members — quarters were sunny and pleasant and the breakfast was excellent.
The third "moment" was a performance of Daphnis and Chloe with the Minneapolis Symphony in robes and makeup. We had rehearsed an a cappella part time and time again but could not keep the pitch. It was thus a real mess when the orchestra rejoined us. At the performance, however, we did it perfectly and the conductor, Antal Dorati, was so visibly startled that I thought he would drop his baton!
Alan Naylor
Singing in the Little Choir
Making it into Little Choir my second semester and being introduced to great choral masterworks: Brahm’s “Requiem”, Bach’s “Be Minor Mass”, “All Breathing Life”, and “Hallelujah Amen, Amen.”
Ramona Bole Kaszas
Morton introduced us to the great composers
The ‘Little Choir’ and the ‘Big Choir’, conducted by Ian Morton, who introduced us to a rich mix of some of the finest choral classical music ever written: Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schönberg…
JoAnne Juul Desmond
The all-new Living Presence recording technique
The Macalester College Choir recording the complete score of Ravel’s “Daphnis & Chloe” with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Antal Dorati. It was the first recording done by Mercury, using Living Presence recording technique.
JoAnne Juul Desmond
Morton’s attic lab
Ian Morton spending hours in his attic lab in the Music building on Summit, designing one of the first synthesizers for the purpose of creating “electronic music.” Many of us thought it was an effort of total futility!
JoAnne Juul Desmond
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