Award-winning Minneapolis author, poet and librettist Michael Dennis Browne will spend Monday, Oct. 28, at Wartburg College, making three public appearances.

Browne, a Pulitzer Prize nominee as librettist for the Holocaust-themed oratorio “To Be Certain of the Dawn,” will discuss that work, which will be presented Sunday, Nov. 10, at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center at the University of Northern Iowa.

The concert will commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht (“The night of broken glass”), considered to be the beginning of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany when Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship were plundered.

The collaborative event will involve than 300 performers — including the Wartburg Choir, the Metropolitan Chorale, the Cedar Valley Youth Honor Choir and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra — and will feature a multimedia presentation with video clips, slides and dramatic readings.

Browne taught at the University of Minnesota for 39 years, has won two Minnesota Book Awards for his poetry collections and authored a children’s book. Born in England, he is a University of Iowa graduate. His Wartburg appearances will include:

• 10:15 a.m. talk in the Wartburg Chapel, where all the Wartburg choirs will sing “Hymn to the Eternal Flame” from “To Be Certain of the Dawn.”
• 3 p.m. poetry reading on the third floor of Vogel Library.
• 5:30 p.m. interfaith panel discussion in the Chapel Commons with Pastor Ramona Bouzard, dean of the chapel; Dr. Kunihiko Terasawa, assistant professor of world religions; and Abhay Nadipuram, former Wartburg student body president and recent University of Iowa law school graduate.

“Michael will talk about the genesis of ‘To Be Certain of the Dawn’ and how it greatly stretched his thinking and faith,” said Dr. Lee Nelson, director of Wartburg choirs and the Metropolitan Chorale. “Michael had to wrestle with a very difficult topic, which commemorates something as horrifying as the Holocaust, while trying to create a bridge of hope.”

“To Be Certain of the Dawn” was commissioned by Father Michael O’Connell, director of the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis, as a gift to the Jewish community. Stephen Paulus of Minneapolis is the composer.

“The work was commissioned as a way to promote healing and create dialogue between the faith communities based on understanding and mutual respect,” Nelson said.

The concert also will feature the talents of Dr. Brian Pfaltzgraff, Wartburg professor of music, a tenor soloist portraying the cantor; Hunter Capoccioni, lecturer in music who plays the double bass for the WCFSO; and Dr. Karen Black, professor of music, the accompanist for the Metropolitan Chorale.

Other performers will include the youth honor choir with students from Waverly-Shell Rock and Hoover (Waterloo) middle schools, the Cedar Valley Chamber Music, the UNI Department of Theatre, and the UNI Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education.