Everybody Sing 'Ah!'

:: Heartfelt notes from youth

:: Donation inspires change

:: Program encourages excellence

:: Youth passion for classical music

:: Read entire story

This summer, The Roger and Lilah Stangeland Foundation donated $700,000 to the program, establishing a permanent endowment that will help defray the costs of bringing young musicians to Eugene. In gratitude for their generosity, festival administrators renamed the program The Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy.

Each summer, the academy brings eighty-five of the nation’s best high school singers to Eugene. For ten days, they live, work, and perform under the baton of Anton Armstrong, a professor of music at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and conductor of the prestigious St. Olaf Choir. Recipient of the 2006 Robert Foster Cherry Award (the single largest award in the U.S. for excellence in teaching), Armstrong is known worldwide for his remarkable ability to work with the very best young singers—and make them better.

“Back home, these students are the leaders,” says Armstrong, “the best singers in their schools. Here, they are surrounded by others just like themselves. We set the bar high.”