We Knew Him When. . .

We Knew Him When
One of our local area boys has become an opera star in the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He performs in Carnegie Hall and this fall will perform at Carnegie Hall, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Opera in Kansas City and the Opera Pacific in California. Andrew (we knew him as Andy) Gangestad, grew up in Two Harbors and at age 31 has been featured in the September issue of “Opera News”.

Andy was our choir director at University UMC (now Hope UMC), when he was a UMD student. He had studied law for two years, and never planned to be an opera singer. His school choir director encouraged him to study music, he had rich bass voice. His vocal instructor at UMD urged him to consider a career in music rather than law, this instructor kept nudging him toward the stage. Since graduating from UMD he’s been performing steadily, moving from Minnesota Opera on to New York, California and many states in between.

He was a wonderful church choir director, but we knew he would be moving on from there for greater things. He teamed up with our local Peter Thompson, who loved to do plays at University Church, and they worked together to bring “The Fantastiks” to the stage at church. (Our stage at Hope will never be the same, as we lost our beloved Peter to cancer two years ago.)

In addition to being a talented musician, Andy is truly a nice guy. It’s so neat to see a local boy make good, and we at Woodland, University and Hope UMC are very happy for him and as proud of him as we were when he was with us. Read more about Andy on my link to The Duluth News Tribune on the left of this page. His story is on the front page this morning!