PEDERSON TO SERVE AS WARTBURG’S GUEST COMPOSER FOR 2019-20

“As he was going through the list, I was like, ‘That’s a great piece. Well, that’s a great piece, too. I just didn’t know how I was going to choose. When he threw out the idea of being a guest composer, I knew we had our answer.”

TRUMPET STAFF

Minneapolis-based composer Kyle Pederson will serve as Wartburg College’s guest composer for the rest of 2019 and 2020.

The Wartburg Choir performed Pederson’s setting of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” which included an electric guitar last spring. Pederson attended the performance and it was the first time the composer had heard the song live.

“We spent some time in Orchestra Hall with Kyle at the piano playing some of these pieces,” Dr. Lee Nelson, Wartburg’s Patricia R. Zahn Endowed Chair in Choral Conducting and Wartburg Choir director, said.

“As he was going through the list, I was like, ‘That’s a great piece. Well, that’s a great piece, too. I just didn’t know how I was going to choose. When he threw out the idea of being a guest composer, I knew we had our answer.”