Wintry Elementary performing at the Contented Cow on Oct. 21 Photo courtesy of Kaya Stark
On a campus as musically inclined as St. Olaf, it is no surprise the latest campus band seeks inspiration from the classroom. Wintry Elementary’s roots stem from the Enduring Questions program.
“What we’re reading is stories mostly, and so songs are stories,” Xander Fuhrer ’26 said. “It’s just kind of a way of talking to and about them.” Enduring Questions is a two-year conversation program that takes students through an intellectual journey of human history, from the Bible to Virginia Woolf. It creates an intensive learning experience. For Paavo Rundman ’26, Emma Winkler ’26, and Xander Fuhrer ’26, it was also a hub for musical imagination.
It was through Enduring Questions that the trio met, and Rundman discovered that Fuhrer was a bassist. From there, they began to make music together for fun. When contacted by some high school friends to open for a show, the two gathered together with Winkler to form their band, Wintry Elementary. Afterwards, they began to focus on creating original music.
“We started to write together and had ideas for songs kind of based on things we were reading at the time and just shared experiences with class and our own personal interests,” Fuhrer said. The group began writing original songs J-term Break in 2023, and now have 11 completed songs. They are working on a conceptual EP project that will consist of four to five originals surrounding the pop genre’s obsession with utilizing women’s names in the title. The project includes songs such as “Daphne,” which can be found on their YouTube page and “Eurydice,” which will be on the EP.
As any Ole can imagine, working in a band at this level of intensity can be difficult while balancing a student workload. For the trio, the bulk of band work is done during breaks. “It is exhausting and it’s hard, but ultimately, it’s more fulfilling than other things we could’ve been doing,” Fuhrer said. “It nourishes a different part of the soul than all the reading and writing we do in class.”
Besides creating their own music, Wintry Elementary has performed several shows since their conception. They have opened for The Dregs, Humbird, a charity event, and have done several shows at The Contented Cow, a local pub. Despite the balancing act between classes and music, the trio views their music as a positive outlet for both. “We’re really good friends so it’s never boring, it’s never tedious, it’s always like really good fun work,” Winkler said. Oftentimes, their music is a connection to their friends and a way to spend time together.
For Rundman, creating music with friends and students in a format such as Wintry Elementary was the very reason he chose to attend St. Olaf College. “As an admitted student, I saw Manderson open for Faye Webster at the Pause and I just thought, ‘wouldn’t it be so cool if I could be at a place where I’m close enough with people that I can make music with them on top of school work and social life?’” Rundman said.
St. Olaf provides resources such as the Pause to connect student musicians with numerous experiential chances. “The Pause has a great infrastructure built for campus musicians by constantly sending out performances and asking if people want to perform at,” Rundman said. “The outreach they have and the opportunities that they present is really great.”
Through music focusing on academic endeavors, music that birthed its own genre “chamber folk pop”, and by hardworking Oles balancing an intense course load, Wintry Elementary is truly a marvel of a band.
