Oregon Bach Festival honors Armstrong’s work
St. Olaf Choir Conductor Anton Armstrong ’78 recently received the Oregon Bach Festival’s Saltzman Award.
The festival’s highest honor, the Saltzman Award is bestowed upon individuals who have provided exceptional levels of leadership. Armstrong has served as director of the Oregon Bach Festival’s Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy since its inception in 1998, providing instruction and guidance to nearly 900 young singers.
“He is more than a conductor,” says Royce Saltzman, the festival’s founding executive director and namesake of the award. “He has mentored these young people in a way that has changed lives and molded them into outstanding citizens.”
The Oregon Bach Festival is an annual celebration of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his musical legacy. The Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy is an intensive, 12-day training and performance program that takes place within the timeframe of the festival.
Armstrong, the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf, became the fourth conductor of the St. Olaf Choir in 1990.