"The Other Swedes"
~ Celebrating Them ~
~ The Lindsborg Swedes, Their Neighbors & Friends ~
<> Their Legacy "Messiah" Performances <>
1986
Dr. Elmer Copley
(1925-1991)
~Remembering him as the “Messiah” conductor for the Bethany College televised Holy Easter Week "American Easter"
~ Celebrating Them ~
~ The Lindsborg Swedes, Their Neighbors & Friends ~
<> Their Legacy "Messiah" Performances <>
1986
Dr. Elmer Copley
(1925-1991)
~Remembering him as the “Messiah” conductor for the Bethany College televised Holy Easter Week "American Easter"
The following was a press release in the MUSIC section from PBS KPTS for the upcoming 1986 Messiah performance displaying once again the internationally renown celebrity of this sacred music coming from the Swedish and Swedish American Lutheran Plains of Kansas nearing the end of the 20th century history of the Messiah Festival under the leadership of the dynamic Dr. Copley.
KPTS presents:
AN AMERICAN EASTER
During the Easter season, KPTS – Channel 8 will once again present musical masterpieces live from the internationally acclaimed Messiah Festival in Lindsborg, Kansas. Garnering an international award for this program in 1981, Channel 8 will -- for the first time – air live performances of both the Good Friday and the Easter Sunday highlights of the celebration.
AN AMERICAN EASTER will showcase two baroque masterpieces in a two-part presentation Easter weekend. Part one, the two hour performance of Bach's oratorio composed for Good Friday, “Passion of Our Lord According to Saint Matthew," “will be broadcast at 9 PM on Friday, March 28. Part Two, Handel's “Messiah," celebrating the resurrection of Christ, will air in a special three-hour broadcast on Easter Sunday, March 30 at 3 PM.
KPTS received the Gold Award from the International Film Festival of New York for its 1981 production of the Festival's “Messiah, “which was seen by 25 million viewers. The station's production plans for this year‘s Messiah Festival began in May of 1985, and the five-hour finish product is scheduled to air internationally, including Puerto Rico. Other areas caring this Easter celebration include Richmond, Virginia, Provo, Utah; Tampa, Florida; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; Sacramento, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Kansas City, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; and Providence, Rhode Island.
“We began work on AN AMERICAN EASTER last spring, and when it is completed we will have spent over a total of 4,000 person hours to deliver the project," said Wm. Bryce Combs, executive producer of the special and director of production at KPTS. “The basic idea for AN AMERICAN EASTER is to give the nation a front-row seat to experience the observance of Easter traditions in the community of Lindsborg, Kansas; how we as a nation have observed Easter through our families and how these traditions have been passed on from generation to generation.“
Performance of the two parts of AN AMERICAN EASTER culminates this year‘s week-long Messiah Festival, a musical tradition for 105 years at Bethany College, a leading American Lutheran college founded in 1881. Involving nearly all the 3,000 inhabitants of Lindsborg and a number of nationally known performers, the festival annually offers heights of musical excellence that have earned international acclaim.
This year‘s host for AN AMERICAN EASTER is David McCullough, well known to KPTS viewers as host of SMITHSONIAN WORLD. He will also narrate an intermission documentary concerning the Easter tradition and it’s paramount importance to the community of Lindsborg. Social historian and writer, McCullough is the author of four distinguished books, each of which has received wide critical and popular acclaim: The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback.
Terry Likona, producer of the 1981 program and regular producer of AUSTIN CITY LIMITS, will return to take charge of the entire broadcast production again this year.
The 1986 Easter broadcast by KPTS will include both the Bach and Handel masterpieces in their entirety. Dr. Elmer Copley of Bethany College returns again as conductor and music director of the festival.
Both performances will feature guest soloist Grayson Hirst, tenor, a leading singer with the Boston City Center, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Houston and San Francisco opera companies; Barbara Conrad, mezzo-soprano, a distinguished performer at the Metropolitan Opera; Rebecca Copley, soprano, a Lindsborg native and rising interpreter of the oratorio repertory; and Herbert Eckhoff, bass, well–known for his oratorio performances with the Oregon Bach Festival, the San Antonio Music Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival of California.
The Messiah Festival has been called “Oberammergau of the Plains “because of its community nature and longevity. It began one Sunday afternoon in December 1881 when a small group of Swedish immigrants gathered at Bethany Lutheran Church in the small Lindsborg settlement. Some walked for miles from sod homes on the Prairie.
That was the beginning of what became the Bethany Oratorio Society, some of well over 400 members today still travel for many miles for months of rehearsals. The singers are students and faculty from the college, townspeople and residents of surrounding farm towns of Kansas' Smoky Hill River Valley. The chorus is joined by the Bethany Symphony Orchestra, whose members are students and faculty of Bethany College. Many of the chorus and orchestra members have been performing together before capacity audiences at the Messiah Festival for decades -- in some cases for nearly half a century. (From the Copley papers.)
KPTS presents:
AN AMERICAN EASTER
During the Easter season, KPTS – Channel 8 will once again present musical masterpieces live from the internationally acclaimed Messiah Festival in Lindsborg, Kansas. Garnering an international award for this program in 1981, Channel 8 will -- for the first time – air live performances of both the Good Friday and the Easter Sunday highlights of the celebration.
AN AMERICAN EASTER will showcase two baroque masterpieces in a two-part presentation Easter weekend. Part one, the two hour performance of Bach's oratorio composed for Good Friday, “Passion of Our Lord According to Saint Matthew," “will be broadcast at 9 PM on Friday, March 28. Part Two, Handel's “Messiah," celebrating the resurrection of Christ, will air in a special three-hour broadcast on Easter Sunday, March 30 at 3 PM.
KPTS received the Gold Award from the International Film Festival of New York for its 1981 production of the Festival's “Messiah, “which was seen by 25 million viewers. The station's production plans for this year‘s Messiah Festival began in May of 1985, and the five-hour finish product is scheduled to air internationally, including Puerto Rico. Other areas caring this Easter celebration include Richmond, Virginia, Provo, Utah; Tampa, Florida; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Seattle, Washington; Sacramento, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Kansas City, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Denver, Colorado; and Providence, Rhode Island.
“We began work on AN AMERICAN EASTER last spring, and when it is completed we will have spent over a total of 4,000 person hours to deliver the project," said Wm. Bryce Combs, executive producer of the special and director of production at KPTS. “The basic idea for AN AMERICAN EASTER is to give the nation a front-row seat to experience the observance of Easter traditions in the community of Lindsborg, Kansas; how we as a nation have observed Easter through our families and how these traditions have been passed on from generation to generation.“
Performance of the two parts of AN AMERICAN EASTER culminates this year‘s week-long Messiah Festival, a musical tradition for 105 years at Bethany College, a leading American Lutheran college founded in 1881. Involving nearly all the 3,000 inhabitants of Lindsborg and a number of nationally known performers, the festival annually offers heights of musical excellence that have earned international acclaim.
This year‘s host for AN AMERICAN EASTER is David McCullough, well known to KPTS viewers as host of SMITHSONIAN WORLD. He will also narrate an intermission documentary concerning the Easter tradition and it’s paramount importance to the community of Lindsborg. Social historian and writer, McCullough is the author of four distinguished books, each of which has received wide critical and popular acclaim: The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback.
Terry Likona, producer of the 1981 program and regular producer of AUSTIN CITY LIMITS, will return to take charge of the entire broadcast production again this year.
The 1986 Easter broadcast by KPTS will include both the Bach and Handel masterpieces in their entirety. Dr. Elmer Copley of Bethany College returns again as conductor and music director of the festival.
Both performances will feature guest soloist Grayson Hirst, tenor, a leading singer with the Boston City Center, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Houston and San Francisco opera companies; Barbara Conrad, mezzo-soprano, a distinguished performer at the Metropolitan Opera; Rebecca Copley, soprano, a Lindsborg native and rising interpreter of the oratorio repertory; and Herbert Eckhoff, bass, well–known for his oratorio performances with the Oregon Bach Festival, the San Antonio Music Festival, and the Carmel Bach Festival of California.
The Messiah Festival has been called “Oberammergau of the Plains “because of its community nature and longevity. It began one Sunday afternoon in December 1881 when a small group of Swedish immigrants gathered at Bethany Lutheran Church in the small Lindsborg settlement. Some walked for miles from sod homes on the Prairie.
That was the beginning of what became the Bethany Oratorio Society, some of well over 400 members today still travel for many miles for months of rehearsals. The singers are students and faculty from the college, townspeople and residents of surrounding farm towns of Kansas' Smoky Hill River Valley. The chorus is joined by the Bethany Symphony Orchestra, whose members are students and faculty of Bethany College. Many of the chorus and orchestra members have been performing together before capacity audiences at the Messiah Festival for decades -- in some cases for nearly half a century. (From the Copley papers.)
HOLY EASTER WEEK PERFORMANCES
1986
1986
The opening comments by PBS host David McCullough and the chorus Come Ye Daughters begin the 1986 Good Friday rendition of J. S. Bach's "The Passion of Our Lord According to St. Matthew" by the Bethany Oratorio Society in Lindsborg, Kansas, conducted by Dr. Elmer Copley
Good Friday
1986
1986
This YouTube production from that televised broadcast was made possible by Chris Abercrombie on September 22, 2010
-------
-------
Easter
1986
1986
This YouTube production from that televised broadcast was made possible by Chris Abercrombie on April 18, 2011
-------------------------
SOURCES: Ms. Rebecca Copley Papers
* * *
"Let Us Celebrate Them"
* * *
Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ restoring lost local histories ~
reconnecting past to present
* * *
All color photography throughout Swedes: The Way They Were is by Fran Cochran unless otherwise indicated.
Copyright © since October 8, 2015 to Current Year
as indicated on main menu sections of
www.swedesthewaytheywere.org. All rights reserved.
"Let Us Celebrate Them"
* * *
Swedes: TheWayTheyWere
~ restoring lost local histories ~
reconnecting past to present
* * *
All color photography throughout Swedes: The Way They Were is by Fran Cochran unless otherwise indicated.
Copyright © since October 8, 2015 to Current Year
as indicated on main menu sections of
www.swedesthewaytheywere.org. All rights reserved.
