BRANDVIK, PAUL (b. 1937)

Dr. Paul Brandvik, former Director of Choral Activities at Bemidji State University, is a native of Fargo, North Dakota. He graduated from Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public School Music and Psychology. He received his Master of Music degree in Voice from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. In 1969, he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music from the University of Illinois.

 

Dr. Brandvik joined the faculty of Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minnesota in 1967 as Director of Choral Activities. He has conducted the Bemidji Choir in performances for the North Central and Northwest Division Conventions of the American Choral Directors Association as well as the National ACDA Convention in San Antonio; the Music Educators National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia; the Europa Cantat in Austria, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain; and the Zimriya, World Festival of Choirs, in Israel.

 

The Burlington Northern Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award was awarded to Dr. Brandvik in 1991. Two years later, in 1993, he was named "Friend of the Arts" by the Bemidji Community Arts Council. In 1994, The American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota presented him with their highest honor, the “F. Melius Christiansen Award,” for lifetime achievement in choral music. Upon his retirement in 1998, he was named Professor Emeritus of Music at Bemidji State University. In 1999, he was inducted into the Minnesota Music Educators Association Hall of Fame.

 

He has conducted the Minnesota, Arkansas, and Montana All-State Choirs, the Nebraska Honors Choir, and has presented lecture-demonstrations for the state and national conventions of the Music Educators National Conference, the American Choral Directors Association, and the international convention of the International Society for Music Education. He has guest conducted at over 100 festivals and workshops in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, New York, Florida, Indiana, Alaska, Virginia, England, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Spain and Israel. For eight summers he taught at the International Choir Conductors Course in Belgium.

 

In addition to his conducting activities, Dr. Brandvik has composed, edited or arranged over fifty works for choirs, is president of Knight-Shtick Press, has published twenty-two Madrigal Dinner Scripts, a book on Madrigal Dinners entitled, The Compleet Madrigal Dinner Booke, and was a contributing author for the book, Up Front: Becoming the Complete Choral Conductor.

 

Dr. Brandvik's biography appears in the International Biographical Dictionary, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Music: Classical, The International Who's Who in Music, and Who'’s Who in Entertainment.