Sister Martina & 77>>e Highwayman

In the Duluth Armory one night last week, a bright-eyed little Benedictine nun rose from her seat, bowed modestly to 3,000 cheering Minnesotans. Sister Martina was being cheered for the music she had written--a setting for chorus and orchestra of Alfred Noyes's poem, The Highwayman.

Sister Martina, 38-year-old music teacher at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, for 20 years a Benedictine, plays neat tennis and baseball, skates in the winter, delights her St. Scholastica girls with her slangy talk.

Sister Martina took music degrees at Chicago's Bush Conservatory and the University of Michigan, but until last summer she composed nothing more pretentious than Christmas songs and little choral pieces. Then she began looking for a narrative poem. The Highwayman ended the search.

Paul Lemay, conductor of the Duluth Symphony, heard a choir sing Sister Martina's The Highwayman, advised her to orchestrate it and enter it in the annual Minnesota composers' competition of the State Federation of Music Clubs. Sister Martina did, won handily. Last week Conductor Lemay, the Symphony and a 250-voice chorus gave The Highwayman its first full performance.

It seemed a queer ballad for a nun to tackle. But even at its climax--when the landlord's daughter warns her lover of the King's men, by shattering her breast with a musket shot--the Noyes was expertly joined by Sister Martina's warm, robust music.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.