Kurt Westerberg

In 1987, Westerberg joined the faculty of the composition department at DePaul University as a full-time professor under then-head George Flynn. Flynn acted as a mentor to Westerberg throughout his teaching and compositional career, and the two released a combined album May 15, 2014, entitled Dual Visions. Dual Visions includes Westerberg's composition Vision and Prayer on a text by Dylan Thomas. Westerberg also released an album of his own instrumental compositions in 2010, entitled Uncertain Light with Southport Records and featuring the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Orchestra. Uncertain Light includes the works Winter Light (1997), Piano Trio (2003), Fantasy for violin and piano (2005), and Concerto for Wind Ensemble (1987). Both albums were released on the Southport record label.

In addition to teaching and composing, Westerberg also became the music director at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Evanston, Illinois, in 1998, after years of playing organ at other parishes in the north suburbs of Chicago.

In 1997, Westerberg was featured in the Critic's Choice Column of the Chicago Reader, where he was recognized for his abstract style influenced by Charles Ives and Henry Cowell by way of Alan Stout.

It was in the midst of the student protests among college campuses across the United States in 1972 that Westerberg wrote politically charged works like De Profundis for chorus, brass and rhythm ensemble, and dancers. This composition would go on to be his first well known work and was played in Washington, DC by his fellow St. Olaf student musicians.

Westerberg was first recognized for his composition De Profundis, which he composed in 1970 in his second year of undergraduate studies at St. Olaf College. The piece was composed in protest to the Vietnam War and the events at Kent State University and Jackson State University that year. Written for brass and percussion ensemble, jazz trio, chorus, and modern dancers, the work was premiered as a part of St. Olaf's 1971 homecoming events. Subsequent performances were heard in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., where Westerberg and the St. Olaf musicians were invited for three performances in 1972. Invited by Rep. Albert Quie, R-Minn, the ensemble performed in the rotunda of the capitol building and in the House and old Senate office buildings. Rep. Quie remarked, "A fine performance-very powerful and moving." The performances in the United States capital received national attention, including an article in the Minneapolis Tribune and a National Public Radio interview with the composer.

In 1968, he started his undergraduate degree in piano studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. While at St. Olaf, his interest in composition grew and he graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Music in Composition.

Westerberg turned his focus and efforts from piano to composition during his college years in the turbulent 1960s and 70s and tried to use bits of different kinds of music he knew at the time (rock vamps, atonal choromaticism) to produce "anti-war pieces with these undertones of somehow trying to address the conflicts that were going on during that time period."

Kurt Westerberg is a composer who was born in Naperville, Illinois in 1950. His mother was a mezzo-soprano and pianist which sparked an early interest in music. He began his musical studies at age five with piano lessons. By age ten he was composing his first pieces for himself.