Photo courtesy of Daniel Rieppel SMSU’s Professor of Music Daniel Rieppel (left) stands with former student Ryan Hugh Ross (right) at their concert together in Vienna in September.

MARSHALL — In a life dedicated to music, continuing to find inspirations and sharing new pieces with the world, Marshall’s Daniel Rieppel performed concerts in Panama and Vienna over the summer with his son and former student.

Rieppel is a professor of music at Southwest Minnesota State University and music director of the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra. He is both a conductor and pianist, and continues to check things off his bucket list as he spent the summer internationally bringing present and late composers’ music to life.

Rieppel performed a world premiere of a piece at the Balboa Theater in Panama in June with his son Erich Rieppel, the principal timpanist of the Minneosta Orchestra, and a series of pieces from exiled Viennese composer Julius Bürger at the Ehrbar Palais in Vienna with former SMSU student Ryan Hugh Ross in September.

“I grew up in Appleton, Minnesota, and knew I was not going to make it as a farmer, I was not interested in that,” Rieppel said. “When I was younger, I really was interested in classical music and that’s really the only main interest I had.”

The first stop was Panama, which held a sentimental meaning for both Dan and Erich.

“One of the pieces that was in the program was a premiere of a new piece we commissioned in honor of my late wife, who was Panamanian,” Dan said. “That was a really big success.”

Dr. Julieta Alvarado-Rieppel was Dan’s wife and Erich’s mother, and her family who still lives there was also in attendance for the show.

“This is one of many ways we continue to recognize and celebrate her (Alvarado-Rieppel) … She’s an important musical figure there (in Panama),” Erich said. “It was very special that they could come and hear two guys from Minnesota put together a concert down in Panama and show them … We mostly did it as a dedication to my mom and my dad’s former wife.”

The piece they performed in dedication to Alvarado-Rieppel was “Las Campanas del Diablo” created by Samuel Robles, a Panamanian composer, which is about the Corpus Christi festival that takes place in Panama and celebrates religion and culture through music, dance and theater.

Dan and Erich also have an ensemble together named Sticks and Hammers.

The concert in Vienna between Dan and Ross also brought several meaningful moments for the two.

“Dan took me under his wing in 2003 when I was a freshman (at SMSU), and you lose direction. But, Dan said, ‘Nope,’ and he saw something in me and took me under his wing,” Ross said. “In 2006 I believe, he brought me to Vienna for a summer abroad and it was an eye-opening experience … Here we are, 20 years later and it’s full circle. We (first) left there together as teacher and student, and returned as colleagues.”

Ross currently lives in Wales, where the two first did a public recital the week prior before going to Vienna. He graduated from SMSU in 2008 with two degrees in music education and music performance, and continues to be a growing presence in the opera industry as an operatic baritone.

Dan and Ross performed a culmination of pieces from an album the two recorded in 2018 of songs Bürger composed. The show was also coupled with a dedication of the Steine der Errinerung (Stone of Remembrance) and Jewish composers. The stones are placed throughout Vienna in sidewalks to remember lives lost during the Holocaust.

Ross said he discovered Bürger years ago, following a strong interest he has in exiled or suppressed composers.

Bürger was an Austrian-then-American composer who died in 1995 at 98 years old.

“I’ve done a lot of work with the archive in Vienna … They invited us to come and do a recital,” Ross said. “Of course we said yes … We gave a little preview concert of it to try it out here in Wales, and then we took it over to Vienna.”

Dan is the pianist and Ross is a lyric baritone in the performance, which was about 25 songs that span from over 70 years of material.

“This lawyer (of Bürger’s) found out he had this huge collection of pieces he had written, some of which had never been performed,” Dan said. “This leading recital we did in Vienna in September was kind of the culmination of many years of effort and music.”

Dan said the concert went very well, and was proud to do it with his former student.

“He (Ryan) was the star of finding this music and re-invigorating interest in this music. He accompanied me on his very first trip (to Vienna), now I’m accompanying him,” Dan said. “For a teacher and professor of music, there could be no greater reward for one’s life spent teaching, than to see a student such as him to have so much success. It was just incredible.”

The feeling was mutual from Ross.

“It was so special to do it with Dan,” Ross said. “They (Dan and Julieta) were like second parents. I went to California and did some more study, then moved over here (Wales) to do a bit more and started my career over here. Dan kept inviting me back to sing with the orchestra and things of that nature.”

Dan and Ross have recently been working on a collection of pieces inspired by Icelandic poet Bill Holm, who was from Minneota and taught at SMSU. He passed away in 2009. The project is currently going through edits, and is to be released in 2025.

The two also won an Emmy last year for a documentary filmed in Iceland on Holmes, titled Playing Haydyn for the Angel of Death.

Through putting on concerts, Dan also managed to stop and see an opera in Bayreuth, Germany, at the Opera House in August.

“It’s almost a shrine for musicians to attend. I wanted my whole life to attend and see at least one opera,” Dan said. “For a musician, it’s one of the main pilgrimage sites one can go to. I was very happy to do that.”

Dan said the hall was completely silent without a hum, and the curtains and light slightly went up at show time to give it a sunrise feel, and progressively got louder with each instrument added once at a time.

Dan and the SMSU orchestra will present “Viva Musica Latina: Music from Latin America” on Sunday at 4 p.m. in the Schwan Community Center for the Performing Arts at Marshall High School, and a chamber music recital on Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the SMSU Campus Religious Center.