A Cook County tradition is losing the leader who has kept it going strong for the past 31 years, but the baton is being passed into very capable hands. For the first time since 1978, B.J. Muus will not be directing the Community Christmas Concert (formerly known at the Messiah)
to be performed at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 5 and Monday December 6 at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
According to Cook County musician Irene Thompson, the concert has been ushering in the Christmas season since the late 1940s when she was in high school. Orra Wilcox, a concert pianist who had retired here from Boston with her opera-singing husband, initiated the concert, which started out as a performance of George Frideric Handel’s entire Messiah.
The concert was originally performed at the old First Congregational Church, which was located on Second Street by the North Shore Building.
Established director steps down
B.J. finished directing his last Community Christmas Concert with no fanfare, perhaps not even knowing himself that this would be his last one. Contacted on November 17, he said that he stepped down in order to spend more time with his wife Alice.
“ I’m proud and honored to continue in his footsteps with this tradition.
A pastor’s son, B.J. spent most of his growing up years in Minnesota but graduated from high school in Spokane, Washington in 1945. He then went to St. Olaf College in Northfield, where he majored in music. Planning a career in the ministry, he went on to Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Students were required to get involved in local churches, and B.J. found a job leading a high school choir at a church in Minneapolis. “The more I worked with them,” he said, “the more I decided I was in the wrong field.” He had found his calling. He dropped out after the first semester and obtained teaching certification from MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis.
B.J.’s first teaching job was in Chisholm, but in the early 1950s, he was recruited by a school superintendent in Illinois to teach at Ottawa Township High School, a large school 85 miles southwest of Chicago. “He asked me to come and build a choir,” B.J. said. Before he got there, the school had no choir program. It was a successful venture, one that carried him to retirement in 1978, when he moved to Grand Marais.
Why did B.J. and Alice retire in Cook County? “Our family had taken vacations in Grand Marais ever since I can remember,” he said. They started out tenting in the tourist park and then rented cabins in Croftville. Eventually they built a log cabin on Lake Superior in Hovland, which the family still enjoys. “I never intended to retire anyplace else,” B.J. said.
That’s a good thing for Cook County, because not only did B.J. join Bethlehem Lutheran Church, direct its choir for about 30 years, and take over leadership of the Community Christmas Concert, he brought his musical family up with him – Janet and Jim Ringquist, John (who married Cindy), and Paul (who married Bonnie) — and they have contributed greatly to this community.
How has the annual Christmas concert changed – or not – through the years? “I didn’t want to do just the Messiah,” B.J. said. While retaining the most directly Christmas-related Handel’s Messiah pieces, he has incorporated other Christmas pieces and more a capella music. The choir and orchestra grew from about 70 people to well over 90.
“We never had tryouts or anything,” B.J. said. “Some had never sung in choirs before.” He is grateful for the dedication of both the choir and the orchestra. “We’ve had a core of instrumentalists who have been very faithful through the years,” he said.
What did B.J. get out of directing the choir and orchestra all these years? “I really did enjoy the community program,” he said. “I enjoyed the people. They came from all over the county and even from Silver Bay. I enjoyed the rehearsals so much. I was just so proud of the people in our community and how they handled those very fine pieces of music.”
After B.J.’s wife was hospitalized two or three times last winter, he thought, “Maybe this is a good time for me to turn it over to somebody.”
New leader is named
An obvious choice to pick up the baton was B.J.’s son Paul, who started out as an elementary school music teacher and has extensive experience directing music groups over the last 30 years in Cook County. Paul was willing to take over directing the church choir, a recommendation the church board endorsed, but he was happy to have someone else take over the Christmas concert.
Enter Bill Beckstrand, several years ago the lay pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hovland and musician at Bethlehem Lutheran (where he shared his awesome giftedness on piano and organ). Maybe it’s something in the air, but Cook County has a way of attracting extremely gifted musicians. His biographical sketch states, “Beckstrand lives, for most of each year, on a tiny island in Lake Superior, where his passion for the arts of northern living and his desire for a quiet, simple life is nurtured.”
“I left First Lutheran in Duluth in May (I was minister of music there),” Beckstrand said when contacted by the News-Herald,
“to live up here fulltime and devote myself to composing— something I’ve dreamed about for years.”
Beckstrand has training in cello, brass, choral singing, keyboard, and composition. He holds a bachelor of music degree in organ performance from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a master’s degree in church music from Concordia University Chicago, and a master’s degree in systematic theology from Luther Seminary, St. Paul. He has been commissioned by many choirs and orchestras and has music published by various presses.
Beckstrand’s re-arrival on the scene was fortuitous for everyone. B.J. said, “It worked out perfectly for me, and I certainly see the Lord’s direction in having it work out that way. It wasn’t just a coincidence.”
“The biggest difficulty for me in moving up here,” Beckstrand said, “was the prospect of having no choir to direct. Thathas been a huge
part of my life and is a real calling for me. So to have B.J. ask me to take on this community choir was a real Godsend. He has accomplished an amazing thing here in Cook County over the 31 years he directed the choir. He established an enviable choral culture, as good as any community choir anywhere, and did it in a remote, rural place. I’m proud and honored to continue in his footsteps with this tradition.”
Beckstrand envisions the possibility of a spring concert with a name as well as nonprofit status for the group. Beckstrand is also a piano tuner and
Beckstrand ” will be available to tune pianos. He can be reached by calling (218)213- 7824 or emailing wabeckstrand@ gmail.com.
A website dedicated to Handel (www.gfhandel.org) quotes Ludwig von Beethoven as saying, “Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. I would bare my head and kneel at his grave.”
Thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of Cook County volunteers over the last six decades, we will once again be able to rise from our seats at the end of the concert, our hearts beating furiously, some of us wiping tears from our faces, and listen to the Hallelujah Chorus:
Hallelujah! for the Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth.
The kingdom of this world is
become the kingdom of our Lord,
and of His Christ; and He shall reign
forever and ever.
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
Hallelujah!
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