Two Wartburg College ensembles will perform at the regional conference of college choral directors in Madison. Wis., Feb. 10-12

The North Central Division of the American Choral Directors Association Conference Concerts will feature the Wartburg Choir and the Castle Singers jazz ensemble

The choir, under the direction of Dr. Lee Nelson, will be among three college choirs, a youth choir and a youth orchestra, performing “To Be Certain of the Dawn: A Holocaust Memorial Oratorio,” in the spotlight concert Friday in the 2,251-seat Overture Center for the Arts.

The Castle Singers jazz ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Jane Andrews, will be among 12 groups performing in individual concerts, but the only jazz group.

The NC ACDA includes choral programs in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas. The ACDA holds its national conference in odd-numbered years and has its seven regional gatherings in even-numbered years.

“The theme of the conference is ‘Beyond the Notes,’” said Nelson, director of Wartburg choral activities. “It’s all about the learning process rather than just the performance of great music. It’s what’s music education is really all about. The whole conference deals with that at all different levels.”

The Castle Singers were selected on the basis of an audition CD with three styles of music — an a cappella ballad, a swing number, and a Latin piece — representing its last three annual tours.

“It’s peer selection,” Andrews said. “Other chorale directors listen to the auditions and select who should come.”

The Castle Singers will perform six pieces — “a variety to show what jazz music is all about,” Andrews said.

“We’ll do a swing piece, an improvisation, an a cappella ballad, two movements from the Jazz Mass that we commissioned for our European tour and Christmas with Wartburg  — one is a samba, the ‘Gloria,’ and the other is blues, ‘Agnus Dei.’ When you think of jazz, you don’t usually think of sacred music.”

The 33-member ensemble will close with its signature piece, “Birdland.”

Meanwhile, Nelson will direct more than 360 singers and instrumentalists from four states — including his 87-member choir — in an hour-long multimedia production about the Holocaust. Dr. Brian Pfaltzgraff, assistant professor of music at Wartburg, will be a soloist.

The college ensembles — including those from Minnesota State University at Mankato and Nebraska Wesleyan University — will be joined by the Madison Youth Choirs (boys and girls) and the Wisconsin Youth Symphony.

Father Michael O’Connell of the Basilica of St. Mary’s in Minneapolis commissioned the work by composer Stephen Paulus and librettist Michael Dennis Browne to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust in 2005. The production uses photographs by Russian-American Roman Vishniac to complement the music.

Nelson previously conducted the oratorio in 2008 as director of the St. Cloud (Minn.) State University choir, which performed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in present-day France, near the German border.

He called it a “transformational experience.”

“It makes the tragic history of the Holocaust very real for the performers and the audience alike,” Nelson said. “It tells the stories of those lost in the Shoah through the faces of the children in the Vishniac photographs. We look at the world through their eyes, we dialogue with them throughout the work, then we turn the lens and look at ourselves. It’s a nontraditional Holocaust work in that it is not an ‘in-your-face piece’ — not overly sentimental, not gory, but a true reflection on what happened and is really sincere.”

The choir will take on different roles, Nelson added, as a Nazi soldier, a Jewish prisoner, the Christian alliance helping the Jews and “Christian guilt.” The children, who eventually become the “voice of God,” are involved at the behest of Father O’Connell.

“He said, ‘Art transcends and transforms,’” Nelson remarked, “and his dream has been that young people perform and study this work.  We are honored to keep that dream going.”