“The choir in its entirety, despite its newness, sang like a veteran organization, the voices blending smoothly, and the attack throughout was with precision and true to pitch. every wave of the director’s baton being followed to the minutest detail.”
– Music critic L.L. Clemans, May 10 1928 Mooring Mast
The Choir of the West in 1927
Joseph Edwards founded the Pacific Lutheran College (PLC) Choir in the fall of 1926 and began building the foundation for an acclaimed choral group with a national profile. He trained his singers through a rigorous schedule of three weekly practices and frequent performances, many of which were broadcast on the radio. It was also under Edwards that the mainstays of the choir’s culture were developed, including annual touring, annual Christmas and reunion concerts, and the name “Choir of the West.”
The PLU Choir built its reputation, in part, through regular touring during its early years. Edwards established this practice with a spring 1928 tour, which extended from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the choir gave its first international appearance. Bus tours continued throughout the Pacific Northwest in the late 1920s, including packed performances at McNeil Island Federal Prison and the American Lake Veterans Hospital in Lakewood, Washington. These frequent tours also contributed to the development of the choir’s name. Following the completion of an extended regional tour with a concert at Tacoma’s First Lutheran Church in 1929, the June 4 edition of The Mooring Mast referred to the PLC Choir as “the choir of the West” for the first time, without the capital C:
Although a planned trip to California in 1930 was cancelled due to distance and auditorium pricing, the choir continued to perform throughout Washington State before Edwards arranged a more ambitious tour the following year. In 1931, the group performed for the international convention of the Luther League in Chicago, Illinois as part of the Choral Union. This concert, given for an audience of 25,000 at the Chicago Civic Stadium, was the highlight of the first Midwest tour. The tour was also a major endeavor, the group traveled eight thousand miles through Washington, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio performing nightly concerts.
As the Choir of the West continued to tour throughout the 1930s, the group also held its first reunion concert in 1932 and continued with radio engagements. Their first radio appearance was on December 19, 1927 on Tacoma’s KMO station. The group performed an hour-long Christmas program with a male octet, accompanied by Joseph Edwards on piano and Nils Rein on violin. The broadcast also featured a “Merry Christmas” address from PLC President Ola Ordal. In the remaining years of Edwards’s tenure, the Choir of the West appeared on Tacoma’s KVI at least four times in 1929, 1931, 1934, and 1937, and on Portland’s KOIN in 1935.
“From a technical standpoint the performance left nothing to be desired. Professor J.O. Edwards, one of the younger of the musical notables of the northwest, kept it under admirable restraint, a difficult task considering the youth and inexperience of the singers.”
– Bismarck Tribune July 11, 1931
Anna Mikkelson in 1931
During this period, Anna Mikkelsen (Class of 1933), became a star for the Choir of the West, with the September 22, 1931 issue of the Tacoma News Tribune calling the soprano “the girl with a golden voice.” Mikkelsen began singing with the choir in 1928 and performed as a soloist to great acclaim. The 1930 edition of Saga, the PLC yearbook, described her as “rendering valuable service” to the choir, and the Wolf Creek Herald called her voice “unusually rich and pleasing” in their July 17, 1931 issue. After Mikkelsen graduated from PLC, she continued to occasionally perform with the Choir of the West as late as 1940, and she sang with the group at their 1939 concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
Joseph Edwards resigned from PLC as Dean of Music and conductor of the Choir of the West following the choir’s 1937 spring season to take a position as music director at Reedley Junior College near Fresno, California. The foundations he laid for both the music department and the Choir of the West are critical to their histories and to the institution, and Edwards created the groundwork for future eras for the choir.
“Returning students have noticed with regret the absence of Professor Joe Edwards from the teaching staff at PLC. While at Parkland Edwards made many friends among his associates. Especially did the choir members have an opportunity to know him as a kind an sympathetic teacher. It was hard not to respond to a director with such a spirit of friendliness.”
– Mooring Mast September 30, 1937
Joseph Edwards was born February 9, 1899 in Northwood, North Dakota. He attended St. Olaf College from 1921 to 1922 and again in 1924, studying music. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Washington in 1927, where he also minored in Education. Edwards attended summer sessions at the University of Washington to attain his Life Certificate in Education in 1936.
In 1925, Edwards accepted a position as Pacific Lutheran College’s Director of Music and was given the task of organizing a choir. In the 1926-1927 school year, he began to put together an a capella group styled after that of St. Olaf. Over time, the group’s reputation grew. In 1932, the “Choir of the West,” under Edwards’ direction, completed its first major tour, travelling to Chicago to perform at a convention of the Luther League. Edwards left PLC in 1937, and the Edwards family moved to Reedley, California, where Joseph was offered a position teaching music in the high school and junior college.
Joseph Edwards married Ardy Eleanor Andersen on August 20, 1925. Together they had a son, David Joseph, who was born March 29, 1930. Joseph Edwards died in Fresno, California on December 30, 1988.
Click the preview images below to see the full photographs
Milton Nesvig
Press play below to hear Milton Nesvig share his memories as a member of the Choir of the West under Joseph Edwards. Nesvig recorded this in 1975 as part of an oral history of PLU.
Richard Nance
Press play below to hear Richard Nance describe Joseph Edwards’s time with the Choir of the West. This is an excerpt from the Choir of the West 90th Reunion Concert.