Iuventus takes final bow

Matt Olson

organized youth chorale 2 years ago

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

COURTLAND -- Matt Olson relaxed in a black leather chair in the basement of his home, resplendent in a wrinkly pair of six pocket khakis and a grey St. Olaf College T-shirt.

For someone watching a dream come full circle, he takes a surprisingly casual attitude towards the whole thing.

Today, his brain child of two years ago, the Iuventus Chorale, will take its final bow at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New Ulm.

Olson, who is all of 18 years old, started Iuventus two years ago with 15 friends he met in the choir at New Ulm High School. His motivation was to establish a choir for high schoolers who really loved to sing.

Iuventus is Latin for "youth." Latin names are often used with choirs, Olson explained.

"I talked about it with a few friends and in the summer of 2000, we said 'Hey, let's go for it!" Olson said.

The choir's music represents a wide variety of choral composers. The program for the final concert, for example, is made up of works by Edvard Grieg and J.S. Bach, traditional songs and spirituals and a couple of Olson's own compositions.

While most of Iuventus' sopranos, altos, tenors and basses -- 37 in all -- were recruited from New Ulm, some travel to rehearsals from Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop, Minnesota Valley Lutheran, St. Peter and Madelia.

The choir experienced some turnover in its two years due mainly to graduations. Today's performance is the group's last because nearly half of its members have graduated and are going off to college.

Olson heads to St. Olaf to study music.

"It's happy and sad," said soprano Martha Stuckey, a NUHS sophomore. "I have friends I won't be able to see anymore, and there's not going to be another choir like Iuventus because Matt is leaving. It's hard to let that go."

Many of Iuventus' members credit Olson for being the mastermind behind the show.

Matt Wieland, a tenor and fellow NUHS graduate, is one of the founding members leaving Iuventus.

Olson approached Wieland about having his own choir.

"I thought it was great idea, but I thought 'This is a huge goal. This is going to be a lot of work,'" Wieland said.

Wieland was right. The group struggled to get grants in order to get Iuventus off the ground. Recruiting new members outside the New Ulm area also proved a challenge.

One of Olson's biggest challenges is picking selections for the choir to sing.

"It means a lot to the people that sing them," he explained. "I want to provide an ensemble that's really enjoyable to them."

The choir managed to record two CDs with Westmark of Minneapolis. The CDs are sold at Lambrecht's in New Ulm.

It received an award from Time Warner Cable for a performance dedicated to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks in the United States. The concert took place in February at Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

On Easter Sunday, Iuventus joined the choir at Christ the King Lutheran Church, where they performed an Easter Vigil composed by Olson.

They performed at other area churches and received an invitation from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Iuventus meets for rehearsal almost every Sunday in the sanctuary at Christ the King for two hours.

"We have our good days and our bad days," Stuckey said. "It's lots of work, but it's lots of fun too. It's a bonding experience because you're singing and hanging out as friends."

For at least a few of Iuventus' members, the choir is an opportunity unlike a regular high school choir because it isn't a required "slacker class" and the conductor is one of their contemporaries.

More importantly, he's a friend. Wieland and Olson have been best friends since seventh grade. Even though the two golf, play tennis and sing together, Olson's still the boss at rehearsal.

"There have been times where he's told me to shut up," admitted Wieland. "He's my friend, but at rehearsal, he has to be the conductor."

And being the conductor is a dream that Olson's had since he saw his older brother, Adam, lead an orchestra when Matt was still in junior high.

"I didn't understand what it was," Matt remembered. "His focus was more on orchestral."

Like many of the members of Iuventus Chorale, Olson started singing at a young age. He joined the school choir in the seventh grade. He continued until ninth grade, when the choir sang with the Minnesota Orchestra and went on a tour of Europe.

Olson points to that year as the turning point in his musical career. It was then that he decided he wanted to try his hand at conducting. First, his church let him try, then the New Ulm Chamber Orchestra.

Then it was on to summer camps at St. Olaf College in Northfield. Then he began talking to universities and sending them videotapes and CDs of the choir. Finally, he got accepted into graduate music schools at the University of Minnesota and St. Thomas University, where he studied -- conducting.

"Being a conductor is kind of like being a teacher, but you just get to make music all the time," Olson said.

Iuventus started to grow after Olson had some posters printed. He began to attract people like Stuckey, whom he recruited from his music teacher. Others, like Mary Lambrecht, joined because they knew him from the school choir.

"I'm happy because it'll be a good performance," Lambrecht said. "But I'm sad because we'll never have a group like this again."

Iuventus Chorale's last concert starts tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the sanctuary at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New Ulm.