Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Members of the Martin Luther College Wind Symphony and the New Ulm Suzuki School joined together on stage Saturday for a mid-winter concert.

NEW ULM — Martin Luther College hosted a midwinter concert featuring a first-time collaboration between MLC’s Wind Symphony and New Ulm Suzuki School of Music.

This performance was in the works for two years. MLC Professor Miles Wurster served as the evenings conductor. He explained originally the collaboration between MLC symphony and New Ulm’s Suzuki School was planned for January 2020, but a snow storm forced it to be postponed until spring 2020. The pandemic forced it to be postponed even further.

The two schools had months to prepare practice the evenings selection, but only had eight hours of rehearsal together before the concert. Despite the short rehearsal time, MLC and Suzuki School perform well together.

The concert featured selections from Igor Stravinksky’s “Firebird Suite;” Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony;” Klaus Badelt’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Phantom of the Opera”.

Wurster thanked everyone involved for making the concert possible. He said the reason music teachers teach music is not to create music majors but so student will “be human and will recognized beauty.”

Wurster believed a greater knowledge of music gave students more life, love and compassion. This was the true goal of teaching music and music appreciation.

After the performance, Wurster said he was pleased with the first collaboration between MLC and Suzuki School. It is possible the community could see further collaborations in the future.