Minnesotan To Meet: Metropolitan Boys Choir's Bea Hasselman

WILLOW RIVER, Minnesota (WCCO) -- Despite being a small town girl from Willow River, Bea Hasselmann has worked with some pretty big names in the world of music.

On the short list: performer, producer and composer George Maurer, vocalist Sanford Moore of More by Four, and Minneapolis native and actor Vincent Karthieser who plays Pete Campbell in Mad Men. Then there's St. Paul native and actor Pancho Demmings, who got his big break in the Guthrie. Demmings was in the movie "The Fugitive" and has also had role on show like CSI New York.

Hasselman has played an invaluable role in coaching these men and so many others while serving as music director of the Metropolitan Boys Choir. It's why we decided she was a Minnesotan you should meet.

Hasselmann found her voice at an early age.

"My mom was musical, played piano by ear, Hawaiian guitar and then I was in band," Hasselmann said.

It wasn't long after attending Winona State University that she started the Metropolitan Boys Choir in 1971.

"We sang at the All-Star game and this is where Hubert Humphrey named us Minnesota's young ambassadors of song when we went to D.C. with him," Hasselmann said.

As music director of the Metropolitan Boys Choir, she's taken the choir all over the world.

Nineteen countries to be exact, but she says nothing is more moving than performing in front of veterans.

Her first job was Choir Director at Central High School and position she held until the school closed in 1983.

One of her first students: Prince Rogers Nelson.

"He was a genius, and he's the type you teach some technique or key changes or head voice, but then you step back you don't over teach a genius," Hasselmann said.

"Did you recognize that right away how truly exceptional her really was?" asked WCCO's Ali Lucia.

"Absolutely, but I also want to start by saying I don't' take any credit for Prince," she said, "I had the pleasure of working with him one-on-one for three years."

She says Prince was a good student but also wasn't afraid to break the rules.

"He used to once in a while skip class and come up the back stairway to get up to my department," Hasselmann said.

It's not just Prince but the thousands of others who she has taught along the way that she takes great joy in seeing their success.

"I have alumni coming back, telling me that they got promoted at work all their career because they learned at 10 years old to look people in the eye and how to present themselves," Hasselmann said.

After more than 40 years of students, Hasselmann says she ready for an understudy at her post.

"I want to leave when I'm on top of my game," Hasselmann said.

Hasselmann also volunteers at the Red Wing Correctional facility and works with incarcerated men, together they sing, write music.