Album Notes

Standing ovations and enthusiastic reviews greet every performance. Being the only boys' choir outside of Germany to have received the honor of opening the International Bach Festival in Ratingen, Germany, in June 1999, with a full concert, the Land of Lakes Choirboys' "Viking Choir' immediately asserted its position as one of the premier boys' choir in the world by receiving a ten-minute ovation after a superb performance of a Bach Cantata. Critics rave about the choir's pure and hauntingly beautiful sound and exceptional intonation.

The Land of Lakes Choirboys "Viking Choir" has made several appearances with orchestras. It has sung with the Minnesota Youth Symphonies in a performance of a Bach Cantata, with the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale in a performance of Carl Orf's "Carmina Burana", wlth Tony Sandler in his Christmas Productions and with the Minnesota Orchestra and Chorale in Doc Severinson's Christmas Show. The Minnesota Opera Company often uses boys of the Land of Lakes Choirboys as soloists and chorus members for its opera productions.

The Viking Choir has worked as a demonstrating choir at vocal workshops in Minnesota, Maryland, New Zealand, Australia and also for the Children's Choir of the Saarbrucken Opera House, Germany.

The Choir has issued eight highly acclaimed CDs to date.

FRANCIS STOCKWELL, born in New Zealand, is the Artistic Director of the Land of Lakes Choirboys. Stockwell studied piano in Geneva and Luceme, Switzerland, and voice at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna, Austria, under Prof. Ingrid Doll Kallinger. At the same time he lived and worked with the Vienna Boys' Choir. He was also teacher of Latin, German and music for 27 years at an International school in Switzerland.