Articles

A summer full of creativity…

August 7, 2024

These past months have been filled with nature, quality time with family and friends, and COMPOSING! In the coming year, you’ll get to hear the fruits of my labor given voice through:

Seattle Bach Choir (WA), Daniel A. Mahraun, director. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the choir with a new setting of the ‘Credo’ with a text by Martin Luther for SATB and organ accompaniment.

Women’s Voices Chorus (NC), Laura Justus Sam, director. Commissioned to be part of their spring concert theme of ‘home and away’ this piece promises to spark joy and challenge this amazing community of singers.

Red Wing High School Choir (MN), Scott Perau, director. A new a cappella piece for graduation with lyrics based on input directly from choir students.

Commissions are how composers like me make their living, and I’m grateful for the artistic leadership of each of these ensembles for engaging me in this way. If you’re interested in commissioning me to write a piece tailor-made for your ensemble, please reach out! 

Great news from the MN State Arts Board

June 3, 2024

Thanks to the State Arts Board, I have been awarded the opportunity to put together a new project with dance choreographer Jennifer Ilse, visual artist Vicky Radel, and poet Athena Kildegaard to develop a process to create public art for and in rural Minnesota communities. The project will address emotional themes that feel particularly potent to us at this time, and that we see expressed in our communities of older women in our own urban and rural areas. I am eager to use our four genres in conversation with one another to explore emotional themes in a way that connects us and our increasingly polarized communities.

During our one-week intensive, each of us will choose one of four emotional themes (yearning, worry, anger, and tumult), and create a piece of art in our own genre. Over the course of the week, we will pass our art to others in our quartet and create a new work in response to what is handed to us. In this way we will end with four four-part cycles of work in four mediums. At the end of the week we will have a public presentation in a venue in Morris, MN. 

I can’t wait to work with Jennifer, Athena, and Vicky on such a meaningful and rewarding project!

Middle School Consortium Project

September 21, 2023

Join me and lead commissioner Angelica Cantanti Youth Choirs (ACYC), directed by Elizabeth Egger, in this consortium! A group of ACYC middle schoolers brainstormed ideas with me this summer. These wise young people want to tell a story surrounding the idea of “confusion.”

“The unknown is forever strange; the answers are never ordinary.”

In one package of $250, here’s what you’ll get:

  • Score (S(S)A and piano), medium difficulty, in PDF form emailed by January 5
  • Your name and institution in score as commission project participants
  • Teaching resources downloadable in Google Slides format including both musical teaching moments and social-emotional learning lessons
  • MP3s vocal practice tracks
  • MP3 accompaniment track
  • Live Zoom with me and Beth Egger (Date TBD) also viewable later on Youtube

All participants will be asked to sign a brief commissioning agreement. Reach out if you have any questions or want to join us!

We Toast the Days Featured in Inspired Choir

December 23, 2022

I’m honored to have been featured in Colleen McNickle’s blog Inspired Choir: “Sing In the New Year with We Toast The Days by Linda Kachelmeier.” Not only does it feature a piece close to my heart, it also presents a composer feature, discussion guides, and teacher resources!

For the last decade, Colleen has been teaching music to students of all ages. She created Inspired Choir in an effort to boost her own practice as a choir teacher and share her work with others. You can learn more about Inspired Choir and Colleen here.

Visit the blog post here, and stay on to take in other wonderful features of fellow composers!

About We Toast the Days:

Originally written to be sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve with friends and family as a new kind of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, this piece grew into a full-fledged choral piece. From quartets to large choirs, it has been performed by community choirs, high schools, and professional groups such as Lumina, Lorelei, and this winter, Cantus. Available Voicings: SSAA, SATB, and TTBB.

“I Give Voice to My Mother” Highlight of Source Song Festival Concert

August 30, 2022

I Give Voice to My Mother, my song cycle in six movements based on poems by Athena Kildegaard from her book “Course” was performed at Source Song Festival the other week, and I was honored to see it mentioned in the Star Tribune’s review of the festival’s opening night performance. You can read the full review here.

It was quite special to have multiple singers share a song cycle:
Clara Osowski and KrisAnne Weiss, mezzo-sopranos
Maria Jette and Tracey Engelman, sopranos
with Mary Jo Gothmann, piano

Linda Kachelmeier’s “I Give Voice to My Mother” was the highlight of the evening, as four singers traded songs that the composer had created from Kildegaard’s poetry. Opening and closing with soft, simple benedictions from festival co-founder Clara Osowski — whose voice I would have loved to have heard more — the cycle was at its most touching on soprano Maria Jette’s interpretation of “A Healing” and Weiss’ chronicle of a mother’s death, “Cadence.”

Rob Hubbard, Star Tribune

Photo: Source Song Festival Founder and Singer, Clara Osowski (left) and composer Linda Kachelmeier (right)

The Joy of Working with Church Choirs

May 19, 2022

Last spring, I was commissioned by the choir at Parkview United Church of Christ, and this month they enthusiastically premiered my new piece When We Sing. I was enamored by the respect and sense of community there, and was impressed that this small church makes music a priority and fosters new work. This experience gave me a chance to reflect on how meaningful music-making is in worship settings. On those rare moments when you get to sit back and listen to a piece you’ve written come to life, you want to stop and savor it.

When I think about the difference between working with a church choir rather than a professional choir, I realize that any choir volunteer is doing it for the sheer love of singing, and that is special. In the case of a church choir member, they are also lifting their voice in praise. I appreciate the humility and selflessness that come with that. I lead my choir at First Presbyterian Church in South St. Paul, MN (where I’ve been for 30 years now!), so I understand very well the sense of community that is fostered in church choirs. I love giving them a mix of known and loved pieces, and new pieces that can challenge and inspire them to new heights.

The values of humility, courage and commitment come to mind as I reflect on my life in church music—it takes a lot of all of these to rehearse and sing week after week. Most church choirs sing more in a year than any student sings over their entire high school career—that takes dedication! I do my best to take those values into other areas of my life.

My compositional voice has undeniably been influenced by my time writing for and conducting church choirs. All in all, I want the music and words to connect with singers and community in a personal way. How does it make them feel when they sing it? Is it accessible to a wide range of voices? Is it relatable?

I want to keep growing my music for worship and hope to serve many more congregations with new songs to sing, new connections to be made.