Creston’s Eklund to conduct at Iowa All-State Music Festival

The 75th anniversary of the Iowa All-State Music Festival this weekend at Iowa State University in Ames will have a Creston influence.

Creston native Peter Eklund, who is a professor of music and director of choral activities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will conduct the patriotic selections for the festival which runs through Saturday. The festival is a showcase of Iowa’s high school best students in choir and band who auditioned for the festival.

“It’s important to know the 75th anniversary of all state,” he said earlier this week. “They made it a high priority to invite guests back who were Iowans, trained in Iowa and had gone on to big things nationally and internationally,” he said. “It’s fun to look at some of the people they invited. I’m flattered to be among them.”

Eklund was part of the all-state festival in 2015. The festival was not held last year because of COVID.

“Twenty five years ago at the 50th, I wish someone would have leaned over and whispered to me to pay attention because ‘you will be conducting,’” he said.

Of the students playing, Eklund estimated 250 students for orchestra, 600 for choir and 300 for band.

As professor and director of choral activities at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he heads the master’s and doctoral choral conducting programs, Eklund conducts the university’s flagship mixed choral ensemble—the nationally recognized ‘University Singers,’ and conducts the nationally renowned University of Nebraska ‘Varsity Men’s Chorus.”

Prior to coming to Nebraska, Eklund taught for more than a decade at Thomas Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids.

Eklund hopes the festival will create some sort of a revival to music in public education. He said COVID has changed schools’ extra-curricular activities.

“Working with music, COVID has hurt the arts,” he said. “When at Cedar Rapids-Jefferson, it was hard to field a football team. It has hurt student involvement. I hope the numbers come back.”

Eklund was referring to a game this football season Jefferson had to forfeit because of a lack of players.