Our Good Friday worship service will include Ronald Nelson’s Passion setting for choir and orchestra which incorporates familiar hymn tunes and congregational participation.

Join us for this opportunity to contemplate the passion story, narrated from the Gospel of Mark with musical underscoring and choral and orchestral responses.

Over many centuries, dramatized settings of the Passion of Christ have been used as tools for connecting and deepening our Christian understanding and faith on this holy day commemorating Christ’s death.

The Passion According to St. Mark by Ronald Nelson is no longer in print or publication. This work is presented with special license for the production from Augsburg Fortress Press, with thanks for their assistance in providing copies of the manuscripts for our use.

Ronald A. Nelson served for 37 years as Director of Music at Westwood Lutheran Church in suburban Minneapolis, known for the children's Choir School he founded, as well as its 100-voice adult choir. Since 1992 he has been a full time composer and festival/workshop clinician. He has many choral compositions in print, including several children's anthems published by Selah.

Neslon was born in Rockford, Ill., in 1927. He received a B. Mus. from St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and a M. Mus. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from St. Olaf College and the F. Melius Christiansen Award from Minnesota ACDA.