By LINDA STULL MOELLER | Photos JULIE PAGEL DREWES ’90

The Wartburg Community Symphony emerged from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with a new director and a new commitment to community collaboration and student involvement.

“Community orchestras are a key cornerstone within any community,” said Dr. Rebecca Nederhiser, who joined the Wartburg faculty in the summer of 2021 as assistant professor of music and director of the Wartburg Community Symphony and Kammerstreicher, the student orchestra. “The artistic and educational growth of our organization is a testament to the ensemble’s relevancy within the Cedar Valley and a foreshadowing of the continued impact it will have.”

In the past year, the WCS has almost doubled in size, drawing an increased number of student musicians from Wartburg and community musicians from the Cedar Valley. To celebrate this year’s 70^th anniversary season, WCS commissioned Messages from Everywhere, a multimedia work by Jocelyn Hagen that takes the orchestra to a new level with digital images generated through artificial intelligence.

The Wartburg Community Symphony Association has partnered with Nederhiser and the college to create educational outreach opportunities designed to attract youth and high school students to orchestral opportunities at Wartburg.  These include a summer Meistersinger Chamber Strings Camp, the revitalization of the Meistersinger Orchestra Festival, and an upcoming Young People’s Concert with the Boston-based Neave Trio.

At the same time, the WSCA has increased the number and amount of student string scholarships and created the Alan and Patricia Hagen Legacy of Music Endowed Scholarship Fund.

The St. George String Quartet, the premier college string group, builds awareness of the Wartburg strings program and awards scholarships to the quartet members, who are chosen by audition. The quartet performs for community events and recently premiered an arrangement of Amy Beach’s Children’s Carnival at an Iowa Music Educators Association conference in Ames.

Kammerstreicher, the college orchestra, now performs in the annual Christmas with Wartburg production and this year became an official college touring ensemble.