Charles Krutz
Associate Professor Emeritus of Music
Music Department Profile During his forty-year tenure at Concordia, Charles Krutz greatly influenced all aspects of the instrumental music program. He introduced the instrumental techniques courses; began guitar instruction; taught applied piano, organ, and a variety of orchestral instruments; and conducted choirs, band, brass choir, and orchestra. He founded the Collegium Musicum and toured nationally with them. Under his direction, the band marched for halftime shows and also began touring.
His off-campus activities included various church music positions, sixteen years as violinist with the Lincoln Symphony, eight years with the Hastings Symphony and thirteen years as concertmaster of the Axtell Messiah Orchestra. During the Bach Tercentenary in 1985, he presented a first-person program on J. S. Bach, giving 240 performances in 36 states. In 2001, he teamed up with his former concertmaster Jan Pfeil Maehr to found Baroque on Beaver (Beaver Island, Michigan), a festival of classical music.
Krutz received the Orpheus award from the Valparaiso University chapter of Phi Mu Alpha in 1985 and the Alumnus of the Year award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Music in 2000. Retired since 1995, he enjoys golf, flying, skiing, sailing, riding his Honda Goldwing and puttering around his farm. He and his wife Mel have five children and ten grandchildren.
Education
M.M., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
B.S., Concordia Teachers College, Seward, Nebraska
Courses taught
band, orchestra, string techniques, woodwind techniques, brass techniques, percussion techniques, piano, organ, guitar, music theory, music history, conducting, arranging, church music, Chorale, Concordia Singers, Collegium Musicum