Our newest exhibit, 100th Celebration of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival, will showcase the annual St. Olaf College event that through nationwide radio and television broadcasts has grown into one of the most well known and iconic celebrations of Christmas in the nation.
The exhibit, co-sponsored by the St. Olaf Office of Music Organizations, opens Thursday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in the newly renovated museum at 408 Division Street. The opening will include refreshments and a brief program at 7:30 p.m. The exhibit will run through mid-January.
The exhibit will take a comprehensive look at the history of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival as seen through the eyes of Northfield residents, including St. Olaf faculty and staff. Video interviews with locals who were associated in various ways with the festival, some 170 images from the past century, and video and sound recordings will be on display. Museum visitors will be able to track how the event has changed from its quiet inauguration in 1912 to the first national PBS TV broadcasts in the 1970s to the groundbreaking nationwide live simulcast to movie theaters in 2007. Today the four annual performances by 500 student musicians attract an audience of 12,000.
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Learn more about this year’s Christmas Festival and national Dec. 4 simulcast at stolaf.edu.
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