University Singers, University of Minnesota Duluth

University Singers, open to students from any discipline on campus, is the most select large choral ensemble within the Music Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Presently under its second director, Stanley R. Wold, University Singers was founded in 1972 by Vernon H. Opheim. Since that time, the organization has completed nine concert tours in Europe, and one each in East Africa, Costa Rica, and Turkey.

University Singers maintains a very active performing schedule. With UMD's Symphony Orchestra (Rudy Perrault, director), it has recently performed Bach's B-Minor Mass; Mozart's Grand Mass in c; Saygun's oratorio Yunus Emre (sung in Turkish, with Concert Chorale) in both Weber Music Hall and either Basilica of St. Mary or Ted Mann Concert Hall (Minneapolis); and Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (May, 2009). The choir has performed for state and regional conferences of both ACDA and MMEA/MENC, and has joined the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra in spring performances (such as Gounod's Faust and Mahler's Resurrection Symphony). Additional annual activities include two Honor Choir festivals, the Weber Memorial Concert, Sounds of the Season, and mid-winter concerts.

Stanley R. Wold, conductor

Stanley R. Wold is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he has taught choral conducting, voice, and vocal music education since 1984. He has earned degrees from Concordia College (Moorhead), the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.

Active on an international level, Stanley Wold studied choral music in Hungary in April of 1995, conducting the choir of the Esterházy Károly Teachers' Training College in Eger (northeast of Budapest). He was an invited clinician and conductor for the Chamber Choir of the Karelian Center for Performance and Art in Petrozavodsk, Russia. He has also been an invited observer of the choral life in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Caracas — particularly the projects of Maria Guinand and Alberto Grau — and was a guest at the International Choral Competition Florilège Vocal de Tours (France). He delivered the keynote address at the January 2007 Eskil Hemberg Music Days in Stockholm. Wold has been a U.S. delegate to the World Symposia of the International Federation for Choral Music in Vancouver, Sydney, Rotterdam, Minneapolis, Kyoto, and Copenhagen, respectively.

In Duluth, Stanley Wold has completed his 18th year as artistic director and conductor of Arrowhead Chorale (the auditioned civic chamber choir of the Twin Ports), was Chorusmaster for the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra (1991-2000), and continues as Director of Music at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church since 1986. He is a frequent vocal adjudicator for music competitions in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Stanley R. Wold

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