News Archives - 2004

The Augsburg College Advent Vespers celebration will mark its 25th anniversary with four services, Friday, December 3 at 5 and 8 p.m. and Saturday, December 4 at 5 and 8 p.m.

Advent Vespers celebrates the beginning of the Christmas season with traditional and contemporary hymns, anthems, and carols. Entertaining an audience of nearly 8,000 annually, the Augsburg College Advent Vespers celebration is one of the largest holiday music events in the Twin Cities. Held in the beautifully renovated Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis, Augsburg College's celebration of the Advent/Christmas season combines over 300 participants; choirs, instrumentalists, readers, and a full liturgical party.

The services will focus on the theme "With Peaceful Wings" and will portray the majesty of the space at Central Lutheran Church. It will follow the drama of the processions and capture the splendor of the sounds of the massed choirs scattered throughout the sanctuary.

To celebrate its special 25th anniversary, Augsburg College is collaborating with Twin Cities Public Television's Emmy Award-winning concert production crew to produce a one-hour program that will be broadcast on TPT2 a number of times Christmas week with the first airing Dec. 22. The program will also be offered statewide to the stations of the Minnesota Public Television Association, and nationwide, via satellite, to every public broadcast service in the United States. Viewers across the nation who are interested in knowing whether or not the program will be aired in their viewing area should contact their local PBS affiliates, to indicate their interest in seeing the program aired and to find out possible times for that airing.

This special television production is the first in the history of Augsburg College and is made possible through a major gift from The Hoversten Family, which has been supporting Augsburg worship, music, and education programs for generations.

"The extended Hoversten families, who also were the major contributors to the construction of the Augsburg College chapel, have lived Augsburg's motto 'Education for Service' through long and distinguished service to their communities through the fields of education, ministry, medicine, law, business and agriculture," said Augsburg President William V. Frame, in announcing their support for the broadcast project.