History & Future | About Northrop

History & Future | About Northrop
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Discover details about Northrop’s nearly 100-year history—from its famous pipe organ to its headline-making renovation—and learn what it plans for the next century.
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A History of Northrop
The heart of the
University of Minnesota
’s East Bank campus and a state historic landmark, Northrop has served as the University’s primary gathering place for the performing arts, world-renowned dance performances, concerts, academic ceremonies, and major civic events.
Since its opening in 1929, Northrop has hosted a dizzying array of artists, entertainers, and public figures from Igor Stravinsky to Santana; Mikhail Baryshnikov to Neil Young; His Holiness The Dalai Lama to the Grateful Dead.
Tens of thousands of students, arts patrons, and Upper Midwest citizens have marveled at its majestic design and experienced its diverse programming.
Northrop was first conceived of as the northern anchor of a 1907 Cass Gilbert-designed campus gathering area, today called Northrop Mall. Officials wanted the anchor to be an auditorium to serve as “a lively center for the arts.” Fundraising started in 1922 to raise $2 million to build a stadium along the mall as well as the auditorium, named in honor of Cyrus Northrop, the University’s second president.
Designed by
Clarence H. Johnston Sr.
, the monumental Classical Revival building was dedicated on Oct. 22, 1929 on the site of a former medicinal plant garden. The University celebrated Northrop’s opening that fall with three concerts. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, soon to take up residence in Northrop for the next 44 years, led off the events.
Campus center for learning and gathering
Northrop was integrated into the campus life of University students, faculty, staff and others for decades. Northrop was the only large multi-purpose hall and primary arts presenter in the area. Its importance to the cultural life of the entire community from the 1930s to 1970s cannot be overstated. The University Artists Course was the original name for the programming and arts performances that came in wide variety to Northrop. Founded by Verna Scott in 1919, the Artists Course was the first such series under college or university sponsorship and was widely imitated. Classical music was the first focus and brought pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and violinist Jascha Heifetz to university audiences. Dance was later added to the series. The first dance performance, by modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman on Jan 12, 1932, was particularly bold. Northrop’s presenting function for performing arts events of all genres, popular and classical, fell under the Artists Course name until 1978, when the name was retired and became the
Northrop Dance Series
A desire to make the University a cultural center for the community included a place to “display pictures.” In April 1934, the University Art Gallery, initially known as the “Little Gallery,” occupied five small rooms on Northrop’s fourth floor. It was virtually the only place in the area where modern and American art could be viewed. The gallery later became the Weisman Art Museum.
Additionally, the
Metropolitan Opera
made Northrop a regular stop on its national tour beginning in 1945. Opera patrons flocked from a nine-state region and Canada to attend opera week each May. Interest remained high until the Met discontinued touring altogether in 1986.
Over the years, students have used the plaza as a gathering spot and also for protests. Convocations, free and open to the public, were held weekly in the auditorium until 1969. From 1959 to 1961 alone, choreographer Agnes DeMille, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., tennis champion Althea Gibson and historian Arnold Toynbee were guest speakers. Inside, large lecture courses were held in the auditorium starting in 1959. Northrop’s basement was, until 2009, home for the 200-plus member University Marching Band.
In the 1970s, interest in dance was gaining popularity. Northrop’s seating capacity and the size of its proscenium stage made it one of the only facilities in the region with the ability to present major touring dance companies. The Northrop Dance Season was established in 1970–71 and has flourished ever since.
Fast-forward to the 21st century. After years of deferred maintenance, an extensive interior revitalization of Northrop began in 2011 by the firm
HGA Architects and Engineers
ARUP Acoustical and Theatrical Consulting
, and
JE Dunn Construction
. The project closed Northrop for three years but when the building reopened in 2014 to fanfare, the iconic building included many new multipurpose flexible spaces including a main theater with 2,700 seats and state-of-the-art acoustics, improved sightlines, cutting-edge technologies, and updated amenities, as well as a rehearsal studio, reception rooms, and more restrooms, concession stands and ticket windows. A second venue, the 168-seat Best Buy Theater, added flexibility for lectures, recitals, film and meetings. Since that Grand Reopening in 2014, Northrop has hosted more than 6,000 events and welcomed 1 million people through its doors. It continues to expand its K-12 programming with student matinees and educational resources for students and educators. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many event cancelations, Northrop worked closely with artists and sponsors to offer new ways of delivering programming online with extended viewing dates and added accessibility features.
— Edited from research and writing by Laura Weber
Extended History
On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the University Artists Course in 1944, its impresario, Verna Golden Scott, wrote, “It would be difficult to enumerate many artists of the past two decades who have not appeared on the University Artists Course.” Half a century later, Scott’s assessment is equally applicable to Northrop Memorial Auditorium, the Artists Course's long time home.
The transformed landmark at the heart of the University of Minnesota’s east bank campus has indeed hosted a dizzying array of artists, entertainers, and public figures in its 85-year history: Igor Stravinsky and Santana; Mikhail Baryshnikov and the B-52s; His Holiness The Dalai Lama and the Grateful Dead; Merce Cunningham and Perry Como; W.H. Auden and Marian Anderson. Northrop’s aura has been experienced by tens of thousands of U of M students, arts patrons, and Minnesota citizens, perhaps as school children bused in to hear the Minneapolis Symphony (now Minnesota) Orchestra or as proud relatives attending commencement ceremonies.
The need for a central campus gathering place was acute by the turn of the twentieth century. The University outgrew its campus surrounding The Knoll, off University Avenue. In this period, the Armory, built in 1896, was the only gathering spot on campus available for arts performances or ceremonial occasions.
The Board of Regents held a design competition for a campus expansion plan in 1907. St Paul’s Cass Gilbert, who by this time had designed the Minnesota State Capitol in the early 1890s and moved his growing practice to New York, won the competition. Gilbert’s notion was a classically inspired mall, which would extend from the old campus district south to the river. Though Gilbert’s design changed a few times, and was never fully executed, he ultimately sited the mall’s main building at the head of the proposed mall.
President Leroy Burton (1917–20) sought to revive the shelved Cass Gilbert plan. In particular, Burton felt an auditorium was needed to serve as “a lively center for the arts.” The auditorium was to be named for Cyrus Northrop, the University’s second president, who served from 1884 until his death in 1911. There was, however, a significant impediment to the plan. The tracks of the Northern Pacific railroad crossed a nearby bridge over the Mississippi River and ran across the southern edge of campus, the area roughly below today’s Northrop Plaza.
Burton’s successor as University president, Lotus D. Coffman, finally negotiated a solution in 1922. The Northern Pacific would reroute its trains to nearby Great Northern tracks, leaving their right-of-way available to build not only Northrop Auditorium, but Memorial Stadium and the other buildings that eventually filled in the mall.
Coffman’s foresight extended to seeking private fundraising as a complement to state support. The Greater University Corporation, made up of 20,000 alumni and friends of the University living in Minnesota, was formed in 1922 to raise $2 million dollars to construct both a stadium, dedicated to the 3,200 Minnesotans who had died in World War I, and the auditorium dedicated to Cyrus Northrop’s legacy. Fifteen hundred enthusiastic students, faculty, staff, and friends pledged $665,000 in the first four days of the fund drive alone.
Once made, however, fundraisers found it difficult to collect on many pledges, particularly from students. With Northrop building costs going up to $1.3 million, the Greater University Corporation took drastic measures. In 1928, one student was taken to court as a test case over his unpaid $100 pledge, shocking the public. It was the first of several such cases to go to court.
The design for Northrop Auditorium is attributed to Clarence H. Johnston Sr., who served as state architect from 1901 until 1936. Frederick Mann, head of the School of Architecture and the University’s Advisory Architect, prepared sketches for the proposed auditorium design, which were given final execution by Johnston.
Despite the shortfall of funds, ground was broken for the 4,847-seat Northrop Auditorium on April 30, 1928, on the site of a former medicinal plant garden (established in 1911 by Dean Frederick Wulling of the College of Pharmacy). Plans were altered to cut costs. Mann expressed concern about acoustics.
The monumental Classical Revival building was dedicated on October 22, 1929. The dominant feature of the red brick building with stone trim is its imposing colonnade of Ionic stone columns. The three-story lobby, dubbed Memorial Hall, contains tablets engraved with names of the founders of the state and University. The auditorium featured an elaborate proscenium arch and chandelier.
The University celebrated Northrop’s opening with three dedicatory concerts (organized by Vera Scott) in the fall of 1929. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, soon to take up residence in Northrop for the next 44 years, led off on October 22. On October 30, the Boston Symphony, under the baton of Serge Koussevitzky, performed. President Coffman presided over the third event, the Alumni and State Program, on November 15.
Northrop’s famous Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ was installed in four sections, from 1932 to 1935. The pipe organ was the second largest in the Upper Midwest, after that of the Minneapolis Auditorium. Its 6,975 pipes—ranging from the size of a pencil to 32 feet high—were located above the stage in a room as big as the stage. It was played from a four-manual console located in the orchestra pit. Organ scholars attest to the Aeolian-Skinner’s historic value as a completely unaltered and intact example of the organ builder’s skill. After years of sitting dormant, funding was acquired to restore the organ and in 2018 the
Minnesota Orchestra
held a celebratory concert, playing the organ in front of an audience for the first time in decades.
The final element of the building to be completed was the inspirational inscription on the building’s façade. Consensus for the wording was difficult to reach; after a number of versions were considered, the inscription was finally carved in June 1936. Harry Rowatt Brown, a local businessman, donated a set of carillon bells (which are actually bars) in 1948 in memory of his wife, Francis Miller Brown.
Northrop was integrated into the campus life of University students for decades. Convocations, free and open to the public, were held weekly in the auditorium until 1969, and less frequently into the 1970s. An extensive range of speakers exposed students to political, scientific, and cultural arenas, as can be seen from a sampling from 1959 to 1961: choreographer Agnes DeMille, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., psychologist Albert Ellis, tennis champion Althea Gibson, and historian Arnold Toynbee. Music professor and University organist Arthur B. Jennings gave half-hour recitals before the Thursday convocations. Cap and Gown Day and Commencement were rites of passage associated with Northrop’s grandeur.
The stairs and plaza in front of Northrop were a natural gathering spot, whether casual lounging between classes, or planned rallies, programs, or protests. Noon Summer at Northrop concerts (now known as Music on the Plaza), have been a campus tradition since 1954. Only a partial version of Clarence Johnston’s original plans for the plaza was built due to lack of funding. Northrop Plaza was finally completed in 1965, paved with granite, according to plans developed by Advisory Architect and professor Winston Close.
The now-familiar umbrella tables on the plaza were installed in 1967. In 1944, the Department of Concerts and Lectures was created as an umbrella unit for activities at Northrop. Under the direction of James Lombard, Concert and Lectures oversaw weekly convocations, special lectures, Summer at Northrop, and the annual tour of the Metropolitan Opera. Concerts and Lectures also provided crucial University outreach services to the state and region by operating talent and booking services for community programs (school assembly and convocation programs, play loan library, high school commencement speakers); concert and lectures series; and theater touring service.
Psychology 1001 and other large lecture courses were not held in Northrop’s large auditorium until 1959, and lasted until other suitable lecture halls were built. Northrop’s basement was, until 2009, home for the 200-plus member University Marching Band, and the auditorium site of its annual indoor concerts. Concerts and Lectures supplemented its paid usher staff with student ushers who donated their time in exchange for seeing free shows. However, as the convocation tradition petered out by the 1970s, many students’ day-to-day experience of Northrop Auditorium consisted of lounging on its steps, walking by its imposing façade on their way somewhere else, or catching a noon concert. Not until graduation day did many venture into the aging auditorium.
The Twin Cities today are blessed with so many performance venues and arts and entertainment options that it is hard to conjure a time when Northrop was the only large multi-purpose hall and primary arts presenter in the area. Its importance to the cultural life of the entire community from the 1930s to 1970s cannot be underestimated.
Artistically, Northrop’s early years revolved around the University Artists Course, founded by Scott in 1919. Classical music was the mainstay of the recital series, held in conjunction with the Music Department. Mezzo-soprano Ernestine Schumann-Heink was its first featured artist. Violinist Fritz Kreisler, pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, violinist Jascha Heifetz, coloratura soprano Lily Pons, and pianist Vladimir Horowitz, are just a few of the artists Scott brought to Minnesota audiences.
The Artists Course was the first such series under college or university sponsorship and was widely imitated. After Northrop’s completion, the Artists Course moved from the Armory and expanded its offerings to include dance. The first dance performance, by modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman on January 12, 1932, was particularly bold. A 1986 thesis on the Artists Course noted its boldness because a German expressionist “Priestess of the Dance” performed solo in the simplest of costumes and on the barest of stages.
Northrop’s presenting function for performing arts events of all genres, popular and classical, fell under the Artists Course name until 1978, when the name retired in favor of Northrop Dance Series.
President Coffman’s desire to make the University a cultural center for the community included a place to “display pictures.” In April 1934, Coffman and Malcolm Willey began the University Art Gallery—initially known as the “Little Gallery”—as an experiment in the fine arts. Now known as the Weisman Art Museum, the Art Gallery occupied five small rooms on the fourth floor of Northrop. Ruth Lawrence, widow of assistant to the president James Lawrence, was appointed curator and director after the first curator, Hudson D. Walker, left after a few months. Lawrence created a niche for the University Art Museum by acquiring modern and American art, making the University virtually the only place in the area it could be viewed.
Lawrence’s first acquisition was Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Oak Leaves, Pink and Gray.” It was displayed initially in the Fine Arts Room, an innovation of Lawrence’s. The room opened in February 1936 as a place with no other purpose than the contemplation of a single work of art. Students, alas, did not use the room as intended, and the Fine Arts Room experiment ended in the early 1940s.
Early exhibitions were designed to support instruction. Faculty and student artwork was also regularly displayed. The exhibitions were so popular that the gallery began to use the corridors of the third and fourth floors of Northrop, and by the early 1960s, expanded to the second floor and main floor. Galleries stayed open on concert evenings so patrons could spend intermission immersed in even more culture. The gallery also operated an art rental service for faculty and staff that continues to this day at the Weisman Art Museum.
From 1938 to 1942, 60 Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers joined the gallery staff as a unit to compile and arrange a vast accumulation of research material from hundreds of sources. Gerome Kamrowski, a 22-year-old WPA artist from Warren, Minnesota, created two murals for the auditorium in 1936, one representing music, ballet, and cinema and the other drama, architecture, and the graphic and plastic arts. The murals have been recreated in their original location in the revitalized Northrop, and can be seen at the stairway entry points to the fourth floor.
In the 1960s, the Art Gallery added important Pop Art works to its collection. Two 20-foot-square murals exhibited at the 1964 World’s Fair (gifts of the artists, University alumnus James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein) had to be displayed on the floor of Northrop’s lobby in 1966 as they were too large to display in the gallery. The following year, the Art
Gallery added its first Andy Warhol piece, a silk-screen print from Warhol’s Marilyn series which was a gift by local art dealers and hair salon owners George Shea and Gordon Locksley.
The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1903. In its early years, it performed in various locations in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, including the Armory. The Minneapolis Symphony, renamed the Minnesota Orchestra in 1968, made Northrop its home from 1930 to 1974. The U of M was one of the few colleges or universities in the country to be home to a major orchestra.
The elegant new hall was welcomed by all, but concerns about acoustics for orchestra performances led to installation of a plywood acoustical shell in 1940 to enhance sound. In 1953, Northrop received what the Minneapolis Tribune called an “ear-lifting,” including a new acoustical shell. Most of the $100,000 project was devoted to improvements of the technical capacity of the hall. Seats were ripped out and replaced, as were the curtain and carpeting. A retractable curtain, used to cut the size of Northrop to 1,228 seats, was added in 1956.
Sound quality for audience and performers of the Minneapolis Symphony continued to be a concern. In response, Northrop installed the world’s first 12-gauge steel acoustical shell in 1961, replacing the 1940 plywood version. (The 1953 shell was used to enhance the smaller recital-sized performances of the Artists Course.) Sound reflecting baffles were designed to eliminate auditorium dead spaces. In 1969, California acoustical consultant Paul Venaclausen directed more acoustical improvements. “At last,” wrote Peter Altman, music critic for the Minneapolis Star, “it is hoped the hall’s notorious sound and sight problems have finally been overcome.”
The Metropolitan Opera made Northrop a regular stop on its national tour beginning in 1945. Opera patrons flocked from a nine-state region and Canada to attend opera week each May. The Opera was a joint production of the University Artists Course, the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and a region-wide committee of sponsors. In the 1950s, James Lombard and Mrs. F.K.O. Weyerhaeuser were responsible for instituting the Met’s first auditions to be held outside New York City, at Northrop.
Touring costs mounted as the years went by. The Met’s biggest stars increasingly refused to tour and regional audiences heard less skilled singers, those either on their way up or down. The Met was forced to drop cities from the national tour, but never Minneapolis. When the Met discontinued touring altogether, in 1986, only four cities, from a high of fifteen in the 1940s, remained on the tour.
As Northrop Auditorium approached the half-century mark, it experienced a series of turning points. The facility was aging. The recital business, staple of the University Artists Course for decades, had seriously declined. The most crucial turning point occurred in 1973, when the Minnesota Orchestra left for its acoustically superior and smaller home, Orchestra Hall. Northrop began running deficits. Under Dr. Ross Smith, who arrived as Concerts and Lectures director in 1968, Northrop looked for innovative ways to fill the hall.
The Board of Regents provided one boost. After prohibiting outside promoters from renting Northrop for their own profit for decades, regents voted to reverse the policy in 1974. The era of rock and pop concerts began.
But it was dance that would prove to be Northrop’s marketing niche. In the 1970s, interest in the art form was gaining popularity. Northrop’s seating capacity and the size of its proscenium stage made it one of the only facilities in the region with the ability to present major touring dance companies. The Northrop Dance Season was established in 1970–71. Northrop committed to dance in 1975, investing $30,000 to replace its old floor with a new sprung wood floor consisting of overlapping wood strips. The floor was called a “Balanchine basket weave,” duplicating the one developed by George Balanchine for the New York City Ballet.
The number of dance companies booked by Northrop rose from three in 1969 to twelve in 1975. These included three of the country’s top troupes, Alwin Nikolai, Alvin Ailey, and Martha Graham, and a 17-performance World Dance Series featuring contemporary, ballet, and folk miniseries. Smith was instrumental in arranging the collaboration between the Minnesota Dance Theatre, the Minnesota Orchestra, and Northrop in presenting the Loyce Houlton’s Nutcracker Fantasy for many holiday seasons.
The list of dance legends Northrop Dance Season presented in the twentieth century alone is so long that to enumerate even highlights risks becoming a laundry list: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolf Nureyev, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp; New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet, the National Dance Company of Senegal, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company are just a few.
Citing its role as a major dance presenter, and wishing to avoid confusion, in September 1978 a Northrop press release went out declaring, “The Department of Concerts and Lectures is pleased to announce that the University Artists Course is officially dead. Alive and well in its place is the Northrop Dance Season, which sponsors the World Dance Season, Metropolitan Opera, Nutcracker Fantasy, and other events noted on this letterhead.”
In 1980, Minnesota magazine reported that, in the previous decade, more than 600,000 people had seen 161 performances under Northrop Dance Season auspices and the department was in the black. Ross Smith noted that the only great dancer who hadn’t appeared on the Northrop stage was Isadora Duncan. Northrop Dance Season was regarded as one of Smith’s most important legacies. It was continued and enhanced by his assistant Dale Schatzlein, who became Northrop director in 1985. (After Schatzlein’s death in 2006, Northrop Operations Director Sally Dischinger served as interim director. Ben Johnson served as director of Northrop Concerts and Lectures from 2007 to 2013. Christine Tschida is Northrop’s director today.)
In 1980 Northrop began regularly hosting distinguished lectures by world leaders when the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs’ Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series made Northrop its home base. Over 50 dignitaries, including U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush (when he was Vice President), and Bill Clinton, have stood at Northrop’s podium. In 2001, Carlson lecturer His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama received an honorary University degree on the Northrop stage as part of his visit to campus.
Competition for the arts dollar in the Twin Cities heated up in the 1980s as new performance venues, particularly the dance-friendly Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, opened. Northrop continued to grow its dance audiences nonetheless. In 1992, Northrop Dance Season counted 3,000 subscribers and overall attendance of 40,000. Programming focused on artists from diverse cultures.
Meanwhile, another important Northrop tenant, the Art Gallery, was contemplating its future. The fourth floor rooms and auditorium corridors were never meant to be the gallery’s permanent home. But there the gallery’s 7,000 pieces valued at some $6 million remained, scattered about the building in cramped storage spaces with no temperature control. Under the direction of Lyndel King, who took the helm in 1981, the gallery made plans for a suitable facility.
In 1983 the Board of Regents approved a name change to University Art Museum. In 1988, regents approved a proposal for $4 million for a new building, if the museum could raise a similar amount. Finally, in 1993 the no-longer “little” museum moved into its own building, the landmark Frank Gehry-designed Weisman Art Museum.
Northrop’s presenting scope expanded in 1987 when it joined with the Walker Art Center in launching the Discover Series to showcase new directions in performance, drawing its season roster from contemporary artists in opera, dance, music, theater, and mixed media. Notable past performances have included Philip Glass, Martha Clark, Diamanda Galas, the Wooster Group, Spalding Gray, Kronos Quartet, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Urban Bush Women. The Discover Series received a boost in 1990 when Northrop was one of three arts presenting organizations nationwide awarded a three-year grant of $249,00 from Northwest Area Foundation to co-commission and present large-scale contemporary visions in the performing arts.
In 1993 Northrop became one of 20 jazz presenters nationwide to join the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest National Jazz Network, paving the way for Northrop Jazz Series, a complement to the club scene. Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra was the first artist to perform as part of the Jazz Season. Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Maria Schneider, and The Bad Plus are just a few who followed.
Years of deferred maintenance meant much work would be needed to ensure the venerable Northrop would be a viable facility in the twenty-first century. The University conducted 11 studies on the future of Northrop, beginning in 1993. Northrop Dance audiences surveyed in 1999 said the words or phrases that came to mind in association with the auditorium were, in order: dance, large/huge, old, uncomfortable seating, parking difficulties. In the early 2000s, University officials solicited the expertise and visions of key constituents and outside experts for their ideas on the future of Northrop. Still, provisions were made for the present. In 2006, the building received $15 million in exterior and mechanical repairs over a 17-month period.
In 2007, the Future of Northrop Advisory Committee stated, “there is no aspect of Northrop without issue.” The configuration and use patterns of the “sacred, aging, and crumbling icon” made only a modest contribution to the academic priorities of the University. A vision for a “multi-use, daily-use facility” featuring a reduced-size 2,700-seat auditorium to allow creation of gathering spaces and academic program offices was advanced, and ultimately implemented.
Funding for the long-planned $88.2 million renovation was finally secured in 2010. Memorial Hall was preserved, but the rest of Northrop’s interior was essentially gutted, though historic artifacts were preserved for later reinstallation. The new multipurpose main theater features state-of-the-art acoustics, improved sightlines, cutting-edge technologies, and updated amenities, including rehearsal studio, reception rooms, and more concession stands and ticket windows. A second venue, the 168-seat Best Buy Theater, adds flexibility for lectures and recitals. The fourth floor added a gallery space. The new Northrop was home to three University-wide programs: The University Honors Program, The Institute for Advanced Study, and The College of Design’s Travelers Innovation Lab, until 2025. While still home to The Institute for Advanced Study, in 2025 Northrop welcomed the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Office of Enrollment Management, and the College of Design Kusske Design Initiative. Seminar and meeting rooms, study spaces and student lounges, and The Bistro at Northrop round out the mix.
What began as the Artists Course almost a century ago is today Northrop Presents. All of Northrop’s residents work collaboratively on the new vision for Northrop: to expand programming in ways that will enlighten, challenge, and engage students, faculty, and the community.
By putting the most compelling artists of the day on stage at the center of campus, matched by world-class technical capabilities and acoustics and comfortable surroundings, the newly revitalized Northrop will again become a destination, the hub for arts, culture, and academic activity it was originally intended to be.
(updated in September 2025)
— Written by Minneapolis writer and historian Laura Weber for Northrop’s Grand Reopening on Apr 4, 2014
Photo by Patrick O'Leary.
The Northrop Pipe Organ: A Resounding Success
The historic Northrop pipe organ is a
remarkable instrument worthy of recognition
. An
Aeolian-Skinner Opus 892
, the organ was built between 1932 and 1936, and is one of the last remaining concert-hall pipe organs in the United States. With its nearly 7,000 pipes, the Northrop organ is approximately 40 feet tall and occupies an area the size of the Northrop stage. The largest of the organ's pipes is 32 feet tall, while the smallest is the size of a pencil. The public face of the organ is the console, the playable part of the instrument that rises on a platform from the orchestra pit with four keyboards and about 225 stops, pedals and buttons.
The Northrop organ is the third-largest auditorium-based Aeolian-Skinner extant in the U.S., and is one of the finest examples of a late-Romantic-era instrument. It was awarded the prestigious “Exceptional Historic Merit” citation by the
Organ Historical Society
in 1999, and organ scholars attest to the Aeolian-Skinner’s historic value as a completely unaltered and intact example of the organ builder’s skill.
Photo by Patrick O'Leary.
Along with its remarkable sound quality in concerts and performances, the Northrop Organ has been used as a teaching instrument throughout the years.
Dr. Dean Billmeyer
, who retired in 2024 as the longest-serving University organist, believed the organ was the single strongest factor in the UMN’s continuation of the organ instruction program and its ability to attract new students to the program. Greg Zelek was appointed Northrop Organist in Aug 2024 and helps curate organ programming to continue his legacy, as well as explore new ways to share the Northrop organ's vast range with all audiences.
Over the decades the Northrop organ fell into disrepair. By the early 1970s, it had nearly stopped working. Gordon Schultz, then a student at the University of Minnesota, started an effort to restore the unplayable organ and would sneak into Northrop on nights and weekends to work on it. Schultz had apprenticed with a Minneapolis organ shop and had an accommodating friend with a key who left certain Northrop doors open for him. More than three decades later, Schultz runs Gould and Schultz musical instrument company and travels the Midwest repairing and building pipe organs. He’s helped to maintain the organ ever since.
Photo by Patrick O'Leary.
When the Northrop building renovation began in 2011, the organ was carefully moved to storage, where it sat for several years waiting for the funding needed to repair and reinstall the instrument. A generous bequest by the late Dr. Roger E. Anderson, long-time supporter of the Friends of the Northrop Organ, provided funds for the reinstallation of the instrument in its current location in the chambers above the stage and behind the proscenium.
The reinstallation, which was painstakingly carried out by
Foley-Baker and Associates
, culminated in a grand inaugural concert on Oct 12-13, 2018, featuring the
Minnesota Orchestra
, conductor
Osmo Vänskä
, and renowned organist
Paul Jacobs
In addition to the
Saint-Saens Organ Symphony No. 3
(a nod to the first concert played on the Northrop organ) the program featured the world premiere of a commissioned contemporary work for organ by
composer John Harbison
, one of America’s most distinguished artistic figures. Northrop, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the
Seattle Symphony
were commissioning partners for this new symphonic work.
The Friends of the Northrop Organ committee continues to meet on a regular basis to promote the historic instrument, support student and faculty recitals, and plan programming and community engagement opportunities for future seasons to spotlight the restored pipe organ.
Learn more about the organ in
this story by the Twin Cities Guild of Organists
. Read more about the organ restoration in this
Finance and Commerce
article
NORTHROP’S ÆOLIAN -SKINNER ORGAN, OP. 892 SPECIFICATION
16 Diapason
8 First Diapason
8 Second Diapason
8 Third Diapason
8 Flute Harmonique
8 Gedeckt*
8 Viola*
8 Gemshorn
5-1/3 Quint
4 Octave
4 Second Octave
4 Flute*
3-1/5 Tenth
2-2/3 Twelfth
2 Fifteenth
VII Plein Jeu*
IV Harmonics
16 Contra Tromba*
8 Tromba*
4 Octave Tromba*
Harp
Chimes
Celesta
16 Bourdon
16 Gemshorn
8 Geigen Diapason
8 Hohlflöte
8 Rohrflote
8 Fluato Dolce
8 Flute Celeste
8 Salicional
8 Voix Celeste
8 Echo Gamba
8 Echo Celeste
4 Octave Geigen
4 Flute
4 Violina
2-2/3 Twelfth
2 Fifteenth
V Dolce Cornet
V Chorus Mixture
16 Posaune
8 French Trumpet
8 Cornopean
8 Oboe
8 Vox Humana
4 Clarion
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
Chimes
16 Contra Viola
8 Diapason
8 Concert Flute
8 Cor de Nuit
8 Dulcet II
8 Dulciana
8 Unda Maris
4 Flute
4 Gemshorn
2-2/3 Nazard
2 Piccolo
1-3/5 Tierce
1-1/3 Larigot
III Dulciana Mixture
16 Fagotto
8 Trumpet
8 Orchestral Oboe
8 Clarinet
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
16 Contra Gamba
8 Flauto Mirabilis
8 Gamba
8 Gamba Celeste
8 Aetherial Celeste II
4 Orchestral Flute
4 Octave Gamba
III Cornet de Viole
16 Corno di Bassetto
8 English Horn
8 French Horn
8 Tuba Mirabilis
4 Tuba Clarion
Tremolo
Harp
Celesta
32 Double Open Diapason
32 Sub Bourdon**
16 Diapason
16 Metal Diapason
16 Diapason (Gt)
16 Contre Basse
16 Contra Gamba (Sw)
16 Contra Viola (Ch)
16 Bourdon
16 Gemshorn (Sw)
16 Echo Lieblich (Sw)
8 Octave
8 Cello
8 Viole (Ch)
8 Gedeckt
8 Still Gedeckt (Sw)
5-1/3 Twelfth
4 Super Octave
4 Flute
V Harmonics
32 Bombarde
32 Contra Fagotto (Ch)
16 Trombone
16 Posaune (Sw)
16 Fagotto (Ch)
8 Tromba
4 Clarion
Chimes
Swell to Pedal
Great to Pedal
Choir to Pedal
Solo to Pedal
Swell to Pedal 4
Choir to Pedal 4
Solo to Pedal 4
Pedal to Great 8 ***
Swell to Great
Choir to Great
Solo to Great
Swell to Choir
Solo to Choir
Solo to Swell
Great to Solo
Swell 16
Swell 4
Swell to Great 16
Swell to Great 4
Swell to Choir 16
Swell to Choir 4
Choir 16
Choir 4
Choir to Great 16
Choir to Great 4
Solo 16
Solo 4
Solo to Great 16
Solo to Great 4
Manual Transfer ***
Pedal Divide ***
All Pistons Next ***
All Swells to Swell
Solid State Combinations by Classic Organ Works
18 General
8 Solo
10 Swell
10 Great
10 Choir
6 Pedal
300 Memory Levels per User; Multiple Users Possible
Sequencer
Transposer
* Enclosed
** Originally a Resultant below GGGG; 7 new pipes 2016 by FoleyBaker to complete the register.
*** Additions by Foley-Baker 2016
Northrop Centennial Commissions
With more than 96 years of presenting history, Northrop has continued to provide cultural experiences that make an impact and connect with the human spirit. Known as one of the first performing arts destinations in the state with decades of hosting world-class dance and music performances, annual holiday dance traditions, popular pipe organ music concerts, legendary speakers and leaders, a robust McKnight Artist Fellowships for Dancers and Choreographers and International Choreographers program, and once home to the Minnesota Orchestra, Northrop has played a vital role in connecting the community with arts and artists to make a lasting impact.
As we excitedly prepare for Northrop’s 100th Anniversary in 2029, we honor this rich history, and look forward to a vibrant future. At the start of the decade before Northrop celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2029, the Northrop Centennial Commissions program was created to provide support for new works, elevate artists across the country, and work collaboratively with companies and artists to amplify their work for years to come. The inception of the program started as a way to support artists whose Northrop performances were postponed and canceled
due to COVID-19
, while its culmination will occur during Northrop’s centennial anniversary. Some of our current visiting artists are creating new work, with support from Northrop.
Support New Works
Marks of RED.
Photo © Alex Apt.
Shamel Pitts | TRIBE
Marks of RED
Commissioned as a Centennial Commission with the Walker Art Center and developed at a Summer Stages Dance @ The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston residency in 2024, Shamel Pitts and multidisciplinary arts collective TRIBE will present the
world premiere of
Marks of RED
at the Walker on Mar 20-21, 2026
as part of the 2025-26 Northrop Season
A work of magical realism narrated by and featuring the viewpoints of six women,
Marks of RED
continues Pitts’s research exploring Black embodiment, aliveness, and human connection. He describes it as an Afrofuturistic meditation on the “womb space,” divining the effect that memory has on our experiences, senses, bodies, reality, and our imaginative possibilities. The fourth chapter in the
RED Series
by Pitts,
Marks of RED
explores the nuanced multiplicity and deep complexity of self-expression, and the perceived spaces for regeneration, enfoldment, implosion, rupture, and potential.
More about the performance
Photo © George Lange.
Aszure Barton & Artists A a | a B: B E N D
Based on her exciting, emotionally stirring, and technically complex body of work, Northrop commissioned
Aszure Barton
to create a new work for her company Aszure Barton & Artists. The new work, titled
A a | a B : B E N D
, premiered at
Kampnagel
on Aug 25, 2023 as part of the summer festival. Barton's primary collaborator on this work is trumpet visionary
Ambrose Akinmusire
with additional aspects developed during a residency in summer 2023. Northrop and the Walker Art Center will present
Aszure Barton & Ambrose Akinmusire:
A a
a B : B E N D
on Sep 18–19, 2025 during the
2025–26 Northrop season
Northrop fans will remember Barton's work from
her company's appearance at Northrop
in 2016, as well as programs by Malpaso Dance Company and American Ballet Theatre II. Her work is also prominent in the repertoire of Northrop favorites Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (where she was named resident artist in 2023), who performed Barton's
BUSK
in 2024
, and Limón Dance Company. The commission is an opportunity to witness her unique movement vocabulary performed by the dancers who work with her most closely.
More about the performance
Daniel Wohl
Prelude for an Old Friend
In November 2024, Northrop and Liquid Music expanded Northrop's film and live music programming to include contemporary films and compositions created by women and artists of color. These new artistic works were created concurrently in a spirit of true partnership, resulting in a trio of prismatic collaborations titled
Sun Dogs
: Filmmaker and Composer Pairings With Alarm Will Sound
. In celebration of these pairings, Northrop commissioned Daniel Wohl, an award winning composer who blends electronics with acoustic instrumentation, to create a new work for Northrop's Aeolian Skinner organ.
Prelude for an Old Friend
for organ, electronics, and vocals, performed by John Orfe of Alarm Will Sound, opened the program and highlighted
our magnificent instrument
More about the performance
Photo © Luis Luque.
Ragamala Dance Company
Children of Dharma
Ragamala Dance Company presented the
world premiere of
Children of Dharma
on Nov 2, 2024 as part of the 2024-25 Northrop Season.
Children of Dharma
builds upon decades of the company’s pioneering work centering ancestral wisdom, artistic excellence, and creativity to contextualize the immigrant experience. Created by mother-daughters Bharatanatyam artists Aparna Ramaswamy, Ranee Ramaswamy, and Ashwini Ramaswamy, the work explores life—forever sprouting, transforming, dissolving, and renewing—through three characters from the Hindu epic
The Mahabharata
. These myths reveal the power of ancient cultures to reaffirm humanity’s relationship with nature and the sacred.
More about the performance
BalletMet:
Timeless Tide
by Yue Yin
Yue Yin,
artistic director of YYDC
and founder of FoCo technique,
premiered this work with BalletMet
–the only major ballet company in America at the time with an Asian American artistic director in
Edwaard Liang
. Yue Yin's
Timeless Tide
brought swirling energy on stage for the world premiere in Columbus, OH, in Mar 2024. Set to an original score by
Michel Banabila
, the work reflects the current and the gravity of the time and the countless interactions that guide the force into a continuous momentum. This work graced the Northrop stage
Fri, Mar 28, 2025
as part of the Northrop 2024-25 Season.
More about the performance
Photo © Paula Lobo.
DIANNE McINTYRE Group:
In the Same Tongue
In the world premiere of this vibrant movement, sound, and language based-work, dance legend and choreographer
Dianne McIntyre
united a vigorous company of dancers and musicians to explore how dance and music “speak” to each other. With original music by celebrated composer Diedre Murray, it reveals how language creates worlds of beauty, alienation, harmony, tension, or peace. Dynamic vignettes ignited the stage, including McIntyre’s autobiographical stories with “the music”—such as the musical influence of the Black Arts Movement—and featured the poetry of Obie-winning playwright Ntozake Shange. This co-presentation
debuted on the Walker Art Center’s stage in Oct 2023
as part of Northrop’s 2023-24 season.
More about the performance
Photo © Shane Wynn.
BRKFST:
STORMCLUTTER
with music by Renée Copeland
Blazing into their 10th year as an ensemble in 2024,
BRKFST
continues to “show us the future of dance” (
Star Tribune
) with a work commissioned by The Cowles Center and Northrop, set to music by company member Renée Copeland.
STORMCLUTTER,
whose world premiere is set for Jun 2024
, is an exploration of relationships and our ongoing efforts to resolve opposing states of interpersonal tension. Misunderstanding, compassion, resentment, egoism, love, loss, betrayal—moving through or attempting to compartmentalize complex dynamics between family and friends and the emotional baggage collected over time becomes an overwhelming task that piles up. While maturation requires people to accept that which they cannot change, BRKFST members illustrate the efforts individuals may take when working to resolve the inner chaos that triggers feelings of dissociation, paralysis, and isolation.
More about the performance
Photo © Jayme Halbritter Photography.
Ashwini Ramaswamy and Kevork Mourad:
Invisible Cities
Following rave reviews from
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post
for her 2019 project
Let the Crows Come
, Bharatanatyam choreographer and dancer
Ashwini Ramaswamy
Ragamala Dance Company
) deepened her choreographic methodology with
Invisible Cities
—a collaborative reimagining of Italo Calvino’s metaphysical novel. Interweaving cultural perspectives with a dynamic group of dance artists, the work featured Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam),
Berit Ahlgren
(Gaga),
Alanna Morris
(Afro-Diasporic),
Joseph Tran
(Breaking), and visual artist
Kevork Mourad
, who created interactive, immersive projections in real-time. Its
world premiere
was rehearsed in part at Northrop and copresented by
The Great Northern
The Cowles Center
, and Northrop in two mesmerizing performances Jan 27-28, 2023.
More about the performance
Xaiver Nunez and Dylan Gutierrez in
Of Mice and Men
. Photo © Todd Rosenberg.
The Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet’s
Of Mice and Men
is
John Steinbeck’s
tender tale of friendship, perseverance, and sacrifice. This new take on the American classic adapted by choreographer
Cathy Marston
featured an original score by
Academy Award®
-nominated composer,
Thomas Newman
. Following an open rehearsal for Northrop audiences in Sep 2021 and its world premiere in Chicago on Apr 27, 2022, this highly-anticipated performance was presented as part of
Northrop’s 2022-23 season
More about the performance
Photo © Psalm Joyce.
Limón Dance Company
Limón Dance Company
has invited
Raúl Tamez
to be the first Mexican choreographer to add to the Jose Limón repertoire for his namesake company. The initial creative exploration and process for the new work was hosted by Northrop in the summer of 2021;
Migrant Mother
premiered in New York on Apr 26, 2022; and appeared on Northrop's stage in the 2022-23 season. Raúl Tamez’s choreography is inspired by a Limón dance titled
Tonantzintla
, which in turn was inspired by a church of that name in Mexico City. Tamez's work considers the Indigenous cultures, languages, rituals, and cosmogonies of the people who built that church, and the meaning of these histories in our contemporary world.
More about the performance
Martha Graham Dance Company in
Canticle For Innocent Comedians
. Photo © Jayme Halbritter Photography.
Martha Graham Dance Company
On Apr 2, 2022, Northrop presented the regional premiere of
Martha Graham Dance Company’s
Canticle for Innocent Comedians
, an extraordinary new collaboration inspired by the themes and format of the lost Graham work from 1952. The original Canticle consisted of eight vignettes dedicated to nature: sun, earth, wind, water, fire, moon, stars, and death. This piece follows that same structure and includes Graham’s original choreography for Moon plus the work of eight choreographers: Lead Choreographer
Sonya Tayeh
Alleyne Dance
Yin Yue
Jenn Freeman
Micaela Taylor
, and
Juliano Nunes
, set to an original score by jazz pianist and composer,
Jason Moran
More about the performance
Paul Taylor Dance Company in
A Call for Softer Landings
. Photo © Jayme Halbritter Photography.
Paul Taylor Dance Company
Paul Taylor Dance Company
was working with choreographer
Peter Chu
on a new piece when they were forced to suspend their operations as a result of COVID-19. Providing commissioning support to the company to continue this work during the pandemic, Northrop embarked on a two-year relationship with the Taylor company that included
A Call for Softer Landings
that had its
world premiere
on Northop's stage for an enthusiastic audience on Feb 12, 2022.
More about the performance
Photo © Jayme Halbritter Photography.
SW!NG OUT
Acclaimed choreographer and rising star
Caleb Teicher
and friends
Eyal Vilner
(composer),
Evita Arce
Nathan Bugh
LaTasha Barnes
, and
Macy Sullivan
created
SW!NG OUT
to bring the best of
swing dance
to the Northrop stage in a world premiere—with live music by the
Eyal Vilner Big Band
—on Oct 2, 2021. Northrop hosted a month-long online residency for
SW!NG OUT
in Oct 2020, including an innovative and international Artistic Exchange devised and led by the artists. An online
Vernacular Jazz Class
and in-person
Lindy Hop social dance at The Southern Theater
concluded the series of workshops and conversations that spanned two seasons.
More about the performance
Kouadio Davis and Alexandra Hutchinson in
Higher Ground
. Photo © Theik Smith.
Dance Theatre of Harlem
After their Oct 2020 performance was postponed due to the pandemic, Northrop committed its commissioning support for
Dance Theatre of Harlem
’s new ballet,
Higher Ground
with choreography by
Robert Garland
set to music by the iconic
Stevie Wonder
. On
Jan 28, 2022
, the company returned to the Northrop stage to perform their new commission for a packed audience who could “barely contain its enthusiasm” for this work that radiated “beautiful transcendence” (
Star Tribune
).
More about the performance
GALLIM in
BOAT
. Photo Courtesy of artist.
GALLIM
In Nov 2020,
Andrea Miller
’s company,
GALLIM
, debuted an
evocative new dance film
adapted from their 2016 stage work
BOAT
that explores what it looks like, feels like, and means to be searching for home. Featuring the music of
Northrop’s pipe organ
played by
University Organist Dean Billmeyer
and the Twin Cities-based
PopUp Choir
, the film takes viewers on a journey of people becoming undone, floating adrift, holding each other, building bonds, and allowing hope and dignity to grow anew. The film was reprised in 2021 as part of
Northop’s Dance Film Series
More about the film
Ragamala Dance Company in
Fires of Varanasi
. Photo © Jayme Halbritter Photography.
Ragamala Dance Company
In
Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim
Ranee
and
Aparna Ramaswamy
imagine a metaphorical crossing place that enters into a ritualistic world of immortality, evoking the birth-death-rebirth continuum in Hindu thought to honor immigrant experiences of life and death in the diaspora. Following its opening of
The Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary season
, the evening-length work made its
regional debut at Northrop
on Feb 26, 2022. This performance was the culmination of a two-year partnership that included a reimagined 2020-21
Ragamala Rooted residency
with free monthly campus and community engagement activities.
More about the performance
Photo still from the film
The State Ballet of Georgia Today
The State Ballet of Georgia
When their in-person performance of
Giselle
was postponed, The State Ballet of Georgia created a film specifically for
Northrop audiences
—giving viewers a peek at the
Georgian ballet company
through gala-style excerpts of ballet repertory, interviews with
Artistic Director, Nina Ananiashvili
and featured dancers, plus breathtaking views of the city of
Tbilisi
and the State Opera and Ballet Theatre. Ballets featured in the film include
Laurencia
, premiered in 1939 by
Vakhtang Chabukiani
Sagalobeli
, a 2007 ballet choreographed to Georgian folk melodies by
Yuri Possokhov
Leonid Lavrovsky
’s
Romeo and Juliet
, which was the first full version choreographed to Prokofiev’s score; and a taste of The State Ballet of Georgia’s
Giselle
More about the Film
2026
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