David H. Anderson, Marketing Assistant Phone: 507-786-3650 E-Mail: david.h.anderson@stolaf.edu Audio/Video samples and press materials available online at: stolaf.edu/stolaf-band ST. OLAF BAND TO PERFORM IN AUSTIN NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf Band, dubbed “one of America’s preeminent bands” by The New Yorker, will perform in Austin as part of its 2016 national tour. The concert will take place on Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 4 p.m. at Austin High School. The concert is free for all students, $10 for adults/seniors, and group rates (10+) are available. Tickets are available on the night of the concert, in advance at stolaf.edu/tickets, or by calling 800-3635487 ($5 fee applies). The St. Olaf Band’s national tour program will feature Steven Bryant’s Ecstatic Fanfare, selections from Jukka Linkola’s Trumpet Concerto No. 2 featuring St. Olaf faculty member Martin Hodel, Peter Van Zandt Lane’s highly energetic Hivemind, Bruce Broughton’s A Celebration Overture, conductor Timothy Mahr’s Endurance, and the final movement of Donald Grantham’s Symphony for Winds and Percussion. Founded in 1891, the St. Olaf Band is an ensemble noted for superb musicianship. Under the leadership of conductor Dr. Timothy Mahr, the St. Olaf Band performs the very best compositions and transcriptions for symphonic band, producing an exciting, crowdpleasing style. The St. Olaf Band is the oldest music organization at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, a campus internationally renowned for its high caliber of musical ensembles as well as high marks in mathematics and the sciences. The band has toured nationally since 1904 and internationally since 1906, when they performed a four-week, 30-concert tour of Norway, making them the first American collegiate band to tour Europe. The band has subsequently toured several times in Norway, Great Britain, Japan, central Europe, and the Mediterranean. In October of 2011, the St. Olaf Band performed for King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway during their visit to St. Olaf College, the second time they have had this honor on royal visits since 1995. After the King and Queen’s visit to St. Olaf in 1995, the band toured Norway with the St. Olaf Choir and St. Olaf Orchestra in commemoration of the centennial of Norway’s peaceful separation from Sweden. In March of 1997, the St. Olaf Band was one of four college and university bands from the United States invited to perform for the American Bandmasters Association annual convention in San Diego, California. The band also performed during the opening concert of the 2004 National Convention of the Music Educators National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 2013, the St. Olaf Band was selected through a blind adjudication process as one of only 10 collegiate wind ensembles to perform at the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) national conference at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Timothy Mahr '78, St. Olaf Band conductor and professor of music at St. Olaf College, is a nationally recognized composer with more than 60 works to his credit, including The Soaring Hawk, for which he received the ABA/Ostwald Award. Mahr has guest-conducted a number of professional and award-winning ensembles, including the United States Air Force Band and the United States Army Field Band, as well as intercollegiate and all-state bands in over 25 states. He is the principal conductor of the Minnesota Symphonic Winds, a featured ensemble at the 2008 Midwest Clinic, the largest international band conference in the world. 2016 Winter Tour St. Olaf Band Complete tour information can be found by visiting stolaf.edu/stolaf-band Owatonna High School Saturday, January 23, 2016, 7 p.m. Yorktown High School Tuesday, February 2, 2016, 8 p.m. Owatonna, Minnesota Arlington, Virginia Austin High School Sunday, January 24, 2016, 4 p.m. Lower Merion High School Wednesday, February 3, 2016, 7 p.m. Austin, Minnesota Ardmore, Pennsylvania Wisconsin Lutheran High School Saturday, January 30, 2016, 7 p.m. Pascack Hills High School Thursday, February 4, 2016, 7:30 p.m. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Montvale, New Jersey Hinsdale South High School Sunday, January 31, 2016, 3 p.m. Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage Carnegie Hall Saturday, February 6, 2016, 8 p.m. Darien, Illinois New York City, New York Bowling Green High School Monday, February 1, 2016, 7 p.m. Bowling Green, Ohio -END-