The talented Kimberly Waigwa, who took the reins as artistic director of One Voice Mixed Chorus in the fall of 2023, is proving to be a boon for the choir, evidenced by its soaring recent show at the Ordway Concert Hall, performed on June 22-23. The show culminated the choir’s 35th season. With a sprinkling of tremendous guest musicians and a wide mix of songs crossing genres and styles, the group sounded precise and full.

“The Art of Joy” ran the gamut from a vivid adaptation of William Butler Yeats’ “The Lake Isle,” composed by Ola Gjeilo, to arrangements of tunes by Dessa and U2, music celebrating Black musical traditions. The chorus performed the simple and lovely “Ambe,” based on a song by Native American songkeeper Cory Campbell, composed by Andrew Balfour, and creative explorations of familiar tunes. Throughout, the concert lived up to its “joyful” title with music that often reverberated with a warm embrace.

Social justice themes percolated the line-up of songs in different ways. There were songs celebrating pride for lesbian, gay, trans and queer communities like the raucous gay anthem “The Lavender Song,” written during a brief period of freedom for queer communities in the early days of the Weimar Republic. There were also works that addressed racism and white supremacy, like “All Good People,” a song by the folk rock group Delta Rae, written in response to the white supremacist attack on the Black church Mother Emanuel in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Soloist Claire Psarouthakis’s bluesy belt earned enthusiastic applause after that number.

Guest musician Roland Hawkins, meanwhile, brought the house down singing “This River,” written by Uzee Brown Jr. with a melody by Ja Jahannes, weaving together sounds of Gospel and African American spiritual music together in a powerhouse delivery.

Speaking to the audience, Waigwa, who uses they/them pronouns, said they approached the season by using the colors of the new Pride flag to initiate conversation. In recent years, black and brown colors have been added to represent BIPOC communities, and other colors have changed meaning or have been removed. Waigwa relayed how the flag itself became a starting point for discussion around diversity and shifting social perspectives. “This concert to me, and this concert cycle, has been the process of understanding what are we fighting for in terms of social justice, and how do we do that in community, and most importantly, how do we do that in joy,” Waigwa said.

“Joy,” with words by Sara Teasdale and music by Hans Bridger Heruth, enveloped the audience with its rich sound. Two piano players accompanied the song— choir accompanist Maureen Armstrong and guest musician Franco Holder— and vocal soloists Stefanie Foreman and Kat Schwartz’s high voices floated up to the rafters in the engrossing number.

Artistic Director Kimberly Waigwa and the One Voice Mixed Chorus singers perform in Jan., 2024 at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis. (Lou RR Zurn / One Voice Mixed Chorus)

After intermission, OVMC’s smaller ensemble of singers, OVation Ensemble, performed a number of songs a cappella, including the haunting version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It’s an arrangement by Andy Beck of Native Hawaiian singer Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole’s version.

When the full choir regrouped, alumni members joined for Minnesota composer Stephen Paulus’ tender “The Road Home,” with lyrics by Michael Dennis Browne. The elder alumni members joining in helped give a sense of the legacy OVMC holds in its history as it looks toward the future.

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A comprehensive study by the Minnesota Department of Health shows that many of the state’s schools, particularly those who serve more low-income families, don’t have a licensed school nurse.

The “Minnesota School Nurse Workforce: A 2022 Snapshot” report analyzed data from 94% of the public and charter schools in the state.

“This is the first time we’ve had such a comprehensive data picture about school nurses and health services staff in Minnesota,” said Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dr. Brooke Cunningham in a release about the report. “What we’ve learned is students in smaller districts, charter schools, and schools that serve more families with lower incomes just aren’t getting that same access to a school nurse as other students in Minnesota.”

Findings

The survey found concerning differences between districts. In the 162 school districts where 40% or more of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, students were three times less likely to have access to nursing or health services than other schools.

The study found that slightly under half of Minnesota school districts, 49%, employ a licensed school nurse, or LSN. To be a licensed school nurse in Minnesota requires a bachelor’s degree in nursing and current registration through the Board of Nursing as both a licensed registered nurse and a public health nurse.

Most of those LSNs are working in larger districts, since a state law requires districts with more than 1,000 students, about 34% of the state’s districts, to employ a licensed school nurse. The report says 93% of the districts covered by that law did have a fully licensed school nurse, but only 26% of districts below that threshold did, meaning that students’ access to care at school varied significantly.

Some schools that did not employ an LSN still had a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse working in the district, but at 26% of Minnesota’s schools, there were no staff fully dedicated to students’ health care.

“Access to quality health care is critical for students in Minnesota, no matter their ZIP code,” said Minnesota Commissioner of Education Willie Jett. “School nurses play an important role in the overall health and well-being of our young people.”

Funding

The study’s recommendations included requests for more thorough and regular data on school nurses, and better strategies to fund smaller districts and those with higher student needs. And since the data was collected in 2022, funding has changed.

“During the past two legislative sessions, Governor Tim Walz and the Minnesota Legislature made significant investments in school support personnel – including school nurses. Investments included $74 million in the ’24-25 biennium and $127 million in the ’26-27 biennium to support hiring new or increasing current school counselors, psychologists, social workers and licensed school nurses,” the release said.

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High-end gyms are no longer just places to sweat it out.

The most exclusive ones offer not only state-of-the-art equipment, exercise classes and spacious locker rooms with cold eucalyptus-scented towels and fancy soaps but also “third places,” locations outside home and work where people can mingle and socialize. That means gyms are now also recreational centers and event spaces, salons and spas, hotels and workspaces. And they’re child care facilities.

At Chelsea Piers in New York, the sports and entertainment complex along the Hudson River, members can get work done before, in between or after workouts at the gym’s lounge and coworking space, which opens up to a 44-foot ceiling and waterfront view. The gym also hosts events, such as author talks and creative classes and workshops, for members.

At Life Time, a gym chain headquartered in Chanhassen that calls its branches a “country club” version of a health club, members can drop off their child before a workout for a fee and can get a private office or a dedicated Herman Miller desk at locations with coworking space, called Life Time Work.

People working near pickleball courts on the first floor at Life Time, a luxury gym at Pennsylvania Plaza in Midtown, New York, Thursday, June 12, 2024. High-end gyms, many of which used to be an amenity, are now the star attraction, offering hotel rooms and workspaces as part of their appeal. They’ve also gotten a lot bigger. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)

A Life Time Work membership, available at their St. Louis Park, Edina and downtown Minneapolis locations in the Twin Cities, includes gym access and will cost you a couple of hundred dollars to thousands per month, depending on what kind of workspace you want and the location.

Gyms, many of which used to be an amenity attached to a hotel or an office building, have now become the star attraction, offering hotel rooms and workspaces as part of their appeal. These kinds of amenities require a lot of space — and a shaky commercial real estate sector with high vacancies has opened up opportunities for big gyms.

Gym facilities have a history of occupying unused properties and spaces. They can extend into spaces not traditionally desirable in the real estate world, using windowless rooms below street level as locker rooms or spaces for group exercise classes. Chelsea Piers took advantage of unused piers on the west side of Manhattan to build its 150,000-square-feet flagship complex in 1995, equipped with a six-lane, 75-foot pool; a rock wall; and three basketball courts.

Life Time Work

Life Time started in Minnesota in 1992 and now has 1.4 million paying members and over 200 locations across the country, mostly in the suburbs. It took over 54,000 square feet at its Penn 1 location in midtown Manhattan, more than enough space for its seven pickleball courts and cafelike seating area and bar, where members can have beers and other beverages on tap and watch one another play. Its other New York locations average about 41,000 square feet. Its first Life Time Work in New York is coming next year to the Brooklyn Tower, which will also offer a 110,000-square-foot space to sweat it out.

The pricing for the upcoming New York space has not yet been determined, but the Life Time Work in downtown Minneapolis charges $249 for a lounge membership, $500 for a desk and $1,278 for a private office. A Chelsea Piers membership starts at $220 per month in New York; the company declined to share its membership numbers.

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Long leases, smaller staff

Life Time and Chelsea Piers can get these big spaces in large part because they sign leases lasting 20 to 25 years, with options to extend at the end of their agreement term. Most commercial leases in New York are five to 15 years, and office leases can be as long as 10 years.

“When you start to see these really long lease terms or ones with extension options built into it, it’s because the developer pays some big fixed costs upfront,” said Cameron LaPoint, an assistant professor of finance at Yale School of Management. “They’re trying to mold the property in a bespoke way to the tenant.”

Life Time’s CEO, Bahram Akradi, said the company’s strategy was to “try to control 40, 50 years” in its existing spaces.

To make their vision work, Life Time reduced its corporate office staff during the pandemic and eliminated sales positions and member promotions, allowing the clubs’ amenities to speak for themselves, Akradi said.

Locker room on the third floor at Life Time, a luxury gym at Pennsylvania Plaza in Midtown, New York, Thursday, June 12, 2024. High-end gyms, many of which used to be an amenity, are now the star attraction, offering hotel rooms and workspaces as part of their appeal. They’ve also gotten a lot bigger. (Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times)

Life Time and other high-end gyms have rebounded after hard times during the pandemic when membership rates plummeted and 25% of all health clubs and studios closed in 2021, according to industry group National Health & Fitness Alliance.

Whether developers will continue spending big on gyms, however, is hard to predict, LaPoint said, especially with leases extending decades into the future. One area of concern is stubborn inflation, said Chris Hudgins, a research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence. He pointed to high membership fees as potential pain points.

But for Akradi, business was going so well that “when you look at our 2024 and 2025 numbers,” referring to membership rates and sales from in-gym purchases, it would seem the pandemic “never happened.”

“We reinvented the business during that time, and it is substantially better than it used to be,” he said.

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