Recapping the René Clausen Festival

The Singers’ organization would like to thank Dr. René Clausen for sharing his time with us during the Festival that occurred on February 19-21. We had 400 high school choirs participating in the opening event, a day of great music-making at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church. Nearly 200 community members participated in the Friday night Community Sing event, singing some of Dr. Clausen’s most memorable and beloved works under his direction. The final concert featured The Singers and a concert of works written between 1977 and today. It was especially exciting that two of the works were that night heard by the composer for the very first time – and both were written back in the 1990s!

We would like to thank all of our gracious venue hosts at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church (Mahtomedi), First Lutheran Church (Columbia Heights), and The House of Hope Presbyterian Church (St. Paul). Videos of the concert were captured by Ken Fitzer (You Tube: Maestroz25), and audio captured by David Trembley (Soundmaster Pro).

We also would like to thank the six participating choirs from Andover H.S. (Melanie Kjellberg), Anoka H.S. (Michelle Hayes), Buffalo H.S. (Michael Walsh), East Ridge H.S. (Liz Gullick), Mounds View H.S. (David Phelps), and Southwest H.S. (Nathan Knoll).