Download a photo of the Postcards Team with performers of the musical tribute to poet Bill Holm
GRANITE FALLS, Minn. — The Pioneer PBS Postcards team recently returned from a trip to Iceland to record the Icelandic premiere of "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death." The piece is a musical tribute to Poet Bill Holm composed by Martha Helen Schmidt, featuring Ryan Hugh Ross as the bass/baritone and Dr. Daniel Rieppel of SMSU on the piano. The concert was held at the Fríkirkjan í Reykjavík Lutheran Free Church in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Excerpts from the concert will be included in an upcoming Postcards special about the career of Dr. Daniel Rieppel, a native of Appleton, Minnesota, who has served as professor of music at Southwest Minnesota State University since 1998. Rieppel has performed widely in the U.S., Latin America and Europe.
The Postcards team was assisted in recording the concert and in navigating the streets of Reykjavík by Marcella Brekken, a resident of Granite Falls and the widow of Bill Holm. Bill Holm was the grandson of Icelandic immigrants and a celebrated American poet and writer from Minneota who died in 2009.
About Postcards The award-winning Postcards program is produced by Dana Conroy with videography and editing by Kristofor Gieske and Ben Dempcy. Since 2013, stories created by the Postcards production team have received 22 Upper Midwest Emmys. The program is made possible by contributions from the voters of Minnesota through a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Production sponsors for the program include Shalom Hill Farm, Explore Alexandria Tourism, the Lake Region Arts Council and KRAM 96.7.
About Pioneer PBS
Established in 1966, Pioneer PBS is an award-winning, viewer-supported television station dedicated to sharing local stories of the region with the world. For more information visit: www.pioneer.org.
Photo caption:
Performers of "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death," a musical tribute to poet Bill Holm recorded on Thursday Oct. 20, 2022, at the Fríkirkjan í Reykjavík Lutheran Free Church in Reykjavik, Iceland. (L to R: unidentified, Ryan Hugh Ross, Dr. Daniel Rieppel, Martha Helen Schmidt, unidentified, Marcella Brekken, Ben Dempcy, Dana Conroy and Kristofor Gieske.)
