Choristers Gather for Annual Youth Music Festival

Training and showcasing emerging young talent

A Video Clip from the Closing Service is Here

A Gallery of Photos is Here

Nearly 120 young vocalists and instrumentalists from nine congregations gathered at St. Mark’s Cathedral on Saturday, February 9 for the 16th Annual Episcopal Youth Music Festival. A day of rehearsals, fellowship and fun culminated in a special service of music and readings with anthems performed by the mass choir and a string orchestra.

The festival is sponsored by the Minnesota Episcopal Youth Arts Council, an independent organization affiliated with the Diocese of Minnesota. Festival organizers reported this year’s event attracted the largest number of participants in recent years.

Participating in the festival were youth choirs (and their directors) from nine congregations: Ascension Church, Stillwater (Nancy Whipkey); Calvary Church, Rochester (Brian Williams); Church of St. John in the Wilderness, White Bear Lake (Helen Gehrenbeck); St. Luke’s Church, Minneapolis (Karla Cole); St. Luke’s Church, Rochester (Jo-Anne Larson); St. Mark’s Cathedral, Minneapolis (Harriet McCleary); St. Martin’s by-the-Lake (Monte Mason and Harriet Dayton); St. Stephen’s Church, Edina (Clark Duhrkopf); and Trinity Church, Excelsior (Luke Tegtmeier).

Karla Cole conducts the mass choir at the 16th Annual Episcopal Youth Music Festival at St. Mark's Cathedral on February 9, 2008.  Photo/Joe Bjordal

Guest conductor at the 16th annual festival was Karla Standridge Cole, director of music and organist at St. Luke’s Church, Minneapolis, where she has served for the past three years. At St. Luke’s she presides over a music ministry of singers, handbell ringers and instrumentalists. Cole holds degrees in music education, choral conducting and piano performance from Texas Wesleyan University and Drake University. She also sings with the early music ensemble, Consortium Carissimi.

It's a fabulous experience for all of us, conductors and musicians alike, to participate in such a community effort,” said Cole. “Many of us work weekly in small churches with not the best acoustics and sometimes pretty small choirs. So the opportunity to sing and worship in a grand setting with the pageantry and the big organ and the many singers was a delight.”

For the first time the festival also included a string orchestra, originally formed at last summer’s Episcopal Youth Music Camp, but also including four mothers of instrumentalists for this occasion. Cole said it was wonderful to have the “intergenerational orchestra” and noted that spent the previous evening together in the Fireplace Room at St. Mark’s playing music together.

“That’s a pretty 19th century way to spend a Friday night. What a great thing in an age when most people experience music on the radio or an Ipod,” said Cole.

Monte Mason, founder of the Episcopal Youth Music Festival, presents the 2008 Bishop's Chorister Award to Sif Nave of St. Luke's Church, Minneapolis.  Photo/Joe Bjordal

The festival is also the occasion for competition for the Bishop’s Chorister Award, which is awarded to a young person who has “demonstrated excellence in leadership, attitude and musical aptitude,” according to the mission statement for the award. The recipient of the award receives a scholarship to attend the annual summer music camp. Auditions for the award are held during the festival in front of a panel of judges.

The 2008 Bishop’s Chorister Award recipient is Sif Nave, a high school student and member of St. Luke’s Church, Minneapolis. She was also in the news this past summer when she and her sister, Keelin, participated in a relay swim across the English Channel.

Receiving “honorable mention” in the award competition was Gavin Sparks, a fifth grader from St. Luke’s Church, Rochester.

Over 200 persons—parents, family and friends—attended the closing service of the festival where the mass choir, orchestra and handbell choir participated in the performance of six anthems that had been rehearsed throughout the day. At the service, Brian Williams, of Calvary Church, Rochester served as organist and Luke Tegtmeier, of Trinity Church, Excelsior, served as pianist. Cindy Boyle, of St. Luke’s Church, Minneapolis, and Clark Duhrkopf, of St. Stephen’s Church, Edina, served as flautists.