Dr. Lynn Petersen
Lynn L. Petersen grew up in Wisconsin, one of five siblings in a musical family. She began piano lessons at the age of six with her mother as her first teacher, and showed an early interest in composition and improvisation. Petersen earned a B.S. in Elementary Education from Dr. Martin Luther College, a Master of Church Music degree from Concordia College-River Forest, and a Ph.D. in Music Theory and Composition from the University of Minnesota. In Fall 2009 she spent a semester on sabbatical studying jazz arranging and improvisation at Washington State University. Her composition teachers have included Dominick Argento, Paul Fetler, Richard Hillert, Carl Schalk, and Gregory Yasinitsky (jazz). She studied piano with Alexander Braginsky and John Bloomfield, organ with Bruce Backer, violin with Edward Burckart, and voice with Jane Jensen.
Dr. Petersen's compositions include music for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles, choir, voice, piano, organ, and music for liturgy and worship. In 1985 she was the first recipient of the Richard Hillert Award in Composition for Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. Her Four Songs for soprano and violoncello, based on poetry by Ed Noonan, was commissioned by Diagenesis in 2011 and performed in Helena, St. Paul, Chicago and Boston. She was commissioned by Carroll College to compose Patterned for Thee, a song cycle based on the poems of the late Sister Annette Moran. The work was premiered for the college's Centennial in 2009 in a collaboration with choreographer Sallyann Mulcahy and her professional company Artisan Dance. Petersen received a commission from the American Guild of Organists to compose Starry Crown Suite, which was premiered at the 2007 Region VIII Convention in Portland, Oregon. In 2006 she was commissioned by the Montana State Music Teachers Association and MTNA to compose a new work which was premiered at the state convention, a song cycle entitled Mary Dyer, Martyr, based on poems selected from Inconsiderate Madness by Helen Marie Casey. She was awarded a Myrna Loy Center Grant-to-Artists for Whirlwind Duo, for flute and organ, which was premiered in Helena, Montana in 2004. She received a commission from the American Guild of Organists to compose an organ prelude based on "Amazing Grace," which was premiered at the 2003 Regional Convention in Salt Lake City. With a commission from the Yavapai College Symphony Orchestra she composed Season of Hope to celebrate the new millennium. Other grants and commissions include the University of Minnesota and Jerome Foundation, the Margaret Fairbank Jory Copying Assistance Program, the faculty brass quintet at Gustavus Adolphus College and Mankato State University, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, organist Dr. Nancy Cooper, and various church choirs and individuals. Many of her original works and arrangements are published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers, Concordia Publishing House, GIA Publications, Northwestern Publishing House, and Pelican Music Publishers.
The Historian
Dr. Gillian Glaes
Originally from Missoula, Montana, Dr. Glaes is an Associate Professor of History. She earned her Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed fields in modern French history, modern German history, European social and cultural history, and modern African history. She conducted fieldwork in France and wrote a dissertation entitled, "The Mirage of Fortune: West African Immigration to Paris and the Development of a Post-Colonial Immigrant Community, 1960-1981," which she is currently revising into a manuscript. Away from the classroom and the archives, Dr. Glaes enjoys skiing, running, yoga, pilates, hiking, fly fishing, camping, and traveling.
Research interests: migration, ethnicity, race, and identity in colonial and post-colonial France, the social history of medicine and public health, surveillance, the history of immigrant associations and organizations, and, most recently, the social and cultural history of skiing in France and Europe.
The Philosopher
Dr. Elvira Roncalli
Associate Professor, obtained her Ph.D. from the Université Catholique de Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium and her Laurea degree from the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. She was the recipient of an Erasmus scholarship to the Husserl Archives at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and of a Fulbright sholarship to Boston College and to the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Her special interests include the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy, Feminist/Gender Theory and Ethics. Away from the classroom, she loves spending time with her family, friends, and travelling to Europe, especially to Italy. Courses taught: Perspectives in Philosophy, Ethics, Social & Political Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Philosophy and Gender, Ethical Theory, Philosophy Seminar: Phenomenology and Existentialism.
