Lutheran Youth Choir of North America inaugurates new Festival of American Vocal Music in Germany this summer

The Lutheran Youth Choir of North America, founded in 2005, will inaugurate a new Festival of American Vocal Music for American and German high school age youth at the medieval Mansfeld Castle outside of Wittenberg, Germany this summer.  Running from July 30 to August 6, 2011, this festival will unite twenty select young American singers from throughout the United States with an equal number of young German singers for a week of intensive rehearsals, performances, music lessons and master classes with an American and German faculty of noted teachers and performers.  The musical repertoire will focus on American spirituals, gospel, and jazz.  The concerts will also include performances of the winning entry in the 2010 International Choral Composition Contest sponsored by the Lutheran Youth Choir, Why Not the Earth? , by the highly regarded Minneapolis composer Ronald Nelson.  Philip Spencer is the Founding Conductor and Festival Artistic Director of the Lutheran Youth Choir of North America.  For further information, go to www.lutheranyouthchoir.org.