FMC Endowment Fund Update

Number of scholarships and grants awarded: 528

Dollar Amount Awarded: $302,563

Recent scholarship and grant awards totaling $6,618 have included these recipients. Congratulations!

2022 ACDA Midwestern (Chicago) Conference Scholarship Recipients

Samantha Walters, Zimmerman Middle-High School
Bridget Zenk, student, University of St. Thomas
Joshua Smith, Holdingford High School and St. John’s Boys’ Choir
Zachary Kubasta, LeSueur-Henderson Middle-High School
Ingrid Lindgren, student, University of St. Thomas

2022 State 9-10 High School Honor Choir Scholarship Recipients

7 scholarship awards to all students who applied
(names withheld due to honoring data privacy)

Scholarships awarded by the FMC Endowment Fund Scholarship Sub-Committee will be available with these application deadlines:

Graduate Study:  April 1 deadline

• Available to both part-time and full-time students with award amounts from $1,200 up to $4,000
• Eligibility:  ACDA-MN members with at least two years of teaching/conducting service in Minnesota

Alice T. Larsen Memorial Scholarship Award:  April 1 deadline

• Available to Minnesota choral directors seeking graduate school experience with award amount of up to $1,500
• Eligibility:  Female ACDA-MN members with at least two years of teaching/conducting service in Minnesota

Summer Dialogue:  May 15 deadline

• Available for Minnesota conductors to attend the annual Summer Dialogue conference August 3-5 located at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN
• Two award levels:  Full Award with registration and campus housing; Partial Award with registration
• Eligibility:  Emerging Minnesota choral directors/teachers with up to two years of experience recent college/university vocal music education graduates, ACDA-MN members who will be attending Summer Dialogue for the first time, regardless of experience

Summer Dialogue Student Conductor Workshop:  March 15 deadline

• Available for student members to participate in the annual Summer Dialogue Student Conductor program, August 3-4, located at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.
• Award includes two-day registration, campus housing, and meals.
• Students will apply with and be selected by their college/university advisor
• Eligibility:  College junior or senior vocal music education major

Donations to the FMC Endowment Fund during 2021 (our 25th anniversary year) demonstrated an outstanding result with more donors participating, and more dollars received. A major source of the increase was sponsorship support for the FMC 151st Anniversary celebration scheduled for November of 2022.

Here follows a summary of giving to the FMC Endowment Fund in 2021:

ACDA-MN and FMC leadership who participated and led the annual donation campaign are represented in these categories:

Steady Growth and A Remarkable Decade of Major Programs and Gifts

Authored by Mary Kay Geston and Bruce W. Becker

As we approached a new millennium, a steady stream of donations from individual, foundation, and corporate donors helped the endowment grow.  In its first five years the endowment funded thirty-nine scholarships to attend Summer Dialogue, seven scholarships to attend divisional or national ACDA conferences, and awarded $4,500 in graduate scholarships to ACDA-MN members.

The F. Melius Christiansen Endowment Fund is indebted to ACDA members and supporters of choral music whose faithful giving has been, and continues to be, essential to the endowment’s ability to invest in the choral life of Minnesota.  In its first ten years the endowment received notable gifts from members and friends.  Several retired state members have also made commitments to the endowment in their wills.

While individual donations are the lifeblood of the endowment, two remarkable gifts stand out in the endowment’s history.  In August, 2002 the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music (WSCM-6) was held in Minneapolis.  Chaired by ACDA-MN member Philip Brunelle, the board of directors for WSCM-6 created the International Choral Festival (ICF), a series of public concerts in Minneapolis and St. Paul featuring each of the international choirs that performed for registrants of the symposium.  In a gesture of goodwill and thanks for ACDA-MN member’s assistance, Brunelle presented the endowment with a check for $90,000 representing the proceeds from the ICF.  This singular donation generated great excitement about the endowment’s future prospects.

Minnesota members who served on the WCS-6 Organizing Committee were:

•     Philip Brunelle, President
•     Robert C. Johnson, Vice President
•     Diana J. Leland, Secretary
•     Frank Stubbs, Treasurer
•     Bruce W. Becker, Program Chair
•     Steven O. Boehlke
•     Lauretta Graetz
•     John Hoeschler
•     Wayne M. Kivell
•     Scott Romaine
•     Kathy Romey
•     Timothy Sawyer

Fast forward four years and the endowment committee’s well-laid plans for a second grand concert ten years after the first have come to fruition.  The F. Melius Christiansen 135th Anniversary Concert on November 19, 2006 at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, brought together choirs of Augsburg College, Concordia College-Moorhead, Concordia University-St. Paul, Gustavus Adolphus College, and St. Olaf College.  Once again, the massed choirs concluded the sell-out concerts, which were offered twice in one day, by singing F. Melius Christiansen’s beloved arrangement of “Beautiful Savior” under the direction of Kenneth Jennings.

At the 2006 anniversary concerts coordinated by ACDA-MN members Bruce Becker and Diana Leland, a one-of-a-kind $100,000 matching gift to the endowment fund from the Minnesota-owned Wenger Foundation was announced.  In response to this major gift, the endowment committee has redoubled its efforts to reach the original goal of $500,000.  Endowment committee members along with the entire membership of ACDA-MN worked diligently and successfully to raise the $100,000 by December 31, 2007 to meet the Wenger Foundation’s challenge.

In the fall of 2009, the stage was set for the next FMC Committee’s sponsored grand event, that of a Minnesota Collegiate Choral Festival, specifically featuring choirs from a non-Lutheran tradition.   The goal of the Committee was to reach out and celebrate Minnesota’s rich choral heritage so evident in our state and private college programs.  Festival Coordinator Steven Albaugh assembled an outstanding steering committee and made plans to bring together five collegiate choirs on Saturday, November 14 at Benson Great Hall at Bethel University in St. Paul.  Auditioned choirs that were selected for this historic performance were the Minnesota State University, Mankato Concert Choir; Northwestern College Choir; Saint John’s University Men’s Chorus; University Singers, University of Minnesota Duluth; and the University of St. Thomas Chamber Singers.  The choirs sang individually and combined to form a massed choir under the guest direction of Craig Jessop, head of the Music Department at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and former conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  The highlight of the performance was the world premiere of a new choral work entitled look up… by Minnesota native composer Eric William Barnum.

Thanks-A-Million FMC Donors!

We thank the following individual and corporate donors who contributed to the FMC Endowment Fund during September-December 2021:

Acknowledge a mentor, colleague, relative or friend, by donating to the FMC Endowment Fund. Your donations, in ANY amount, are welcomed at ANY time.

Your gift to the F. Melius Christiansen Endowment Fund supports choral music excellence in Minnesota today and in the future. ACDA of Minnesota is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization and all gifts are tax-deductible.

For more information or to make an on-line contribution by credit card, click:

https://www.givemn.org/organization/American-Choral-Directors-Association-Of-Minnesota-And-Its-F-Melius-Christiansen-Endowment-Fund

Or mail your contribution to:

FMC Endowment Fund
Bruce W. Becker
ACDA-MN Executive Director
13288 Downey Trail
Apple Valley, MN  55124
execdirector@acda-mn.org

Now more than ever, your support will help sustain our scholarship program and support the ACDA-MN general budget, thereby reducing fees for Summer Dialogue and State Conference registrants.

We greatly appreciate your ongoing generosity and support.  Thank you!

SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT POLICY

ACDA-MN leadership overseeing the FMC Endowment Fund and the Alice T. Larsen Memorial Scholarship Fund, annually advises our investment management firm to adopt selective investment strategies that utilize socially conscious investment options that focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria.

Members of the FMC Endowment Fund Committee

• Rolf Anderson
• Daniel Digre
• Marie Spar Dymit
• Rikka Estenson
• Nancy Grundahl
• Stephen Grundahl
• Paula Holmberg
• Jon Kietzer
• Melanie Kjellberg
• Kathryn Larson
• Karla Miller
• Mark Nelson, Chair
• Randy Schafer
• Daryl Timmer
• Stephanie Trump, ACDA-MN State President
• Michael Walsh, Chair-Elect
• Bruce W. Becker, Executive Director

FMC Endowment Fund Emeritus Members

• Steven Albaugh
• Linda M. Armstrong
• Steven O. Boehlke
• Lawrence Burnett
• David Docter+
• Katherine G. Doepke
• Richard Edstrom
• A.B. Engen+
• Geneva S. Eschweiler+
• Murrae N. Freng+
• Barbara A. Geier
• Mary Kay Geston
• Janice Gilbertson
• Lauretta P. Graetz+
• Curtis E. Hansen+
• Thomas Wm. Hassig
• Diane Heaney
• Charles Hellie
• Paula Holmberg
• Robin Hughes
• Robert C. “BJ” Johnson+
• Wayne M. Kivell
• Jennifer Krinke
• Diana J. Leland
• Howard C. Lerohl+
• Carl H. Lipke
• Larry McCaghy
• Robert D. Mix
• Ronald A. Nelson+
• Robert L. Peterson+
• Bruce Phelps
• Tim Peterson
• Linda M. Smith
• Roger H. Tenney
• Axel Theimer
• Michael Wolsted

FMC Advisory Board Members

• Anton E. Armstrong
• Philip Brunelle
• Carol Barnett
• Abbie Betinis
• René Clausen
• Jocelyn Hagen
• Sigrid Johnson
• Brian Newhouse
• Stephen Paulus+
• Jake Runestad
• Kathy Saltzman Romey
• Timothy C. Takach
• Dale Warland

(+) In Remembrance