Bryan / Yan

Bryan in high school.

Bryan with some of his ASB cabinet.

Bryan leading national boys choir project Go for Gold in Vanse Church, 2013.

Bryan at Christmas concert Res miranda—en norsk julevandring i Vestbygda kapell, 2015.

Yan at his high school graduation, 1972.

Yan in 2022.

07-22-2025

“Mother had a dream,” Bryan Breidenthal tells his classmate Yan Chow.  She’d been born in the States, but grew up in Panama, the daughter of a Norwegian engineer on the Panama Canal.  Her dream was to one day pack up her boys and move to what she felt was her homeland.  And se og se, she did. 

Growing up in California, Bryan shared his mother's dream of exploring the family Norwegian heritage, but he had other dreams too.  He thought he might become a homeopath or osteopath, but his Harvard chemistry classes killed that dream.  He was tempted by a career in architecture.  He loved music.  He may not have been a prodigy but by two or three he was picking out tunes on the piano, and he took lessons from the time he was five.  

But what was most important to Bryan was his faith.  Growing up in the 60s, he tells Yan, “This was the Jesus Revolution,” a charismatic reawakening.  The Breidenthals were adherents of the Lutheran liturgical tradition.  Bryan may have had his dreams, but “finding out what God wanted me to do” was foremost. 

He followed his mother and younger brothers to a small township on the southern coast of Norway—Farsund, on the Lista peninsula.  And there he has stayed.  

He started a boys’ choir, which is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  But the last decade has been tough.  Covid dealt a blow.  Funding and support has dried up.  The world is moving on in so many ways.  And Bryan wonders to Yan: “Is this still my calling?”