News

The St. Olaf Choir, conducted by Anton Armstrong ’78, will embark on its 2024 national tour to Colorado and the Southeastern United States starting in late January.

The ensemble’s 70 singers will perform in 12 cities from Saturday, January 27, through Monday, February 12. They will present concerts in some of the nation’s finest churches and concert halls in a six-state tour of Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee. 

The St. Olaf Choir is internationally renowned for its unique combination of advanced choral singing and the presentation of challenging choral programming, with a vast repertoire that on this tour includes sacred and secular choral standards, traditional hymns, new compositions, spirituals, and more. The program will include pieces by living and traditional composers and arrangers, including José Maurícío Nuñes-García, Jocelyn Hagen ’03, André J. Thomas, Moses G. Hogan Jr., St. Olaf College Professor of Music Justin Merritt, St. Olaf Choir founder F. Melius Christiansen, and more.

“This program features a number of works that have had a historical relationship to the legacy of the St. Olaf Choir, yet the 2024 concert selections feature even more works by composers who have been historically marginalized, especially compositions by women and people of African-American and Afro-Brazilian descent,” says Armstrong. “I am delighted that my faculty colleague Dr. Catherine Rodland, who will join the St. Olaf Choir on this tour as a collaborative organist and solo performer in a work by Fanny Hensel, sister of Felix Mendelsson. There will also be an opportunity for the audience to join the St. Olaf Choir in singing a hymn concertato in a setting by Professor Emeritus of Music John Ferguson.  It is a concert program that will be musically and spiritually enriching, andI welcome you to join us!”

Armstrong is in his 34th year leading the St. Olaf Choir. He is the fourth and longest tenured conductor to lead the ensemble during its 111-year history. In addition to his role as a professor of music at St. Olaf College, Armstrong is in demand in the international choral scene as a guest conductor and lecturer. Like his three predecessors, Armstrong carries forward the international reputation of the St. Olaf Choir, an ensemble that is rooted in St. Olaf College’s tradition of faith and commitment to a global perspective.

Tickets for the St. Olaf Choir tour dates are on sale now, available online or by phone at 800-363-5487.

A full list of concert dates and venues can be found below: 

January 27 • 7 p.m.
Fort Collins First United Methodist Church
Fort Collins, Colorado

January 28 • 2 p.m.
Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church
Denver, Colorado

January 31  • 7 p.m.
Germantown United Methodist Church
Germantown, Tennessee

February 1 • 7:30 p.m.
Callaway Auditorium at LaGrange College
LaGrange, Georgia

February 2 • 7 p.m.
Trinity United Methodist Church
Tallahassee, Florida

February 3 • 7 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church
St. Petersburg, Florida

February 4  • 3 p.m.
Moorings Presbyterian Church
Naples, Florida

February 6 • 7 p.m.
The Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea
Palm Beach, Florida

February 7 • 7 p.m.
First United Methodist Church of Orlando
Orlando, Florida

February 8  • 8 p.m.
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia

February 9 • 7 p.m.
First Baptist Greenville
Greenville, South Carolina

February 11 • 4 p.m. 
Covenant Presbyterian Church
Nashville, Tennessee 

February 12 • 7 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood
Kirkwood, Missouri