By Dan White – Special to the Sydenham Current
As we hit the home stretch of the holiday season,
If you missed the two performances of the Wallaceburg Concert Band, Pat Lee’s choir, Devon Hansen’s Celtic Christmas, the Lambton and Chatham Concert Bands and the plethora of other holiday presentations by local performing artists, there are only two possible reasons.
You’re a performing artist and you had conflicts on many or all of those events, and when you didn’t, you simply couldn’t drag yourself out of the house one more time — even though you really wanted to support your performing arts peers.
Or…
Perhaps…
Just maybe…
You identify with Scrooge and the Grinch, and festive music, plays and presentations of all sorts make you angry.
Before the third ghost pays you a visit.
Before Cindy Lou Who pulls on your heart string (yes, just one string!), here is a final holiday opportunity to join the throngs who have gone to experience live music, theatre and dance in our community, by our community.
They have paid very little, often just time. They have bounced and nodded, bopped and clapped. They have smiled their biggest smiles as songs hugged their hearts. All of this done by artists who often donate their talent and time. They rush from one concert at a beautiful grand church, to a hall down the street where a band swings and sways, then off into the wilderness, to the tiniest of churches. All of this done with no request for pay. All of this done without selling tickets.
“And why,” you might think, “do they give it away?” They do it, you see, because they all care. They lend out their talent to feed hungry children. They lend out their skill to get toys under trees. Or maybe, perhaps, to help build something new… something wonderful and shining that benefits you.
So here is a chance, maybe your last, to support the people who give ’til it hurts. They don’t ask for much. They won’t charge a fee. It’s simply you that they’re hoping to see.
In a church down the road, called Trinity United, on Wellington Street in the Burg of Wallace, thirty musicians will gather to play. They’ll bring tubas and trumpets, French horns galore, pianos and drums. A sax will join in, a gaggle of clarinets, trombones, flutes and a euphonium or two. Music will range from holiday favourites to new classics too, and of course, some surprises — a fun song or two. Perhaps there will be a comedy sketch. If you think Mr. Bean, it won’t be a stretch.
So gather your family, bring in your friends, dress up all festive before the season ends. We won’t all be perfect, but we certainly will try, and when we are done, you’ll leave on a high.
Wrap up this season with an Enchanted December Evening, an intimate concert you won’t want to be leaving. You’ll bask in the candlelight and music will wash over you as the big day approaches and your heart will grow 10 times over.
December 19, 7 p.m., Trinity United Church, 750 Wellington Street, Wallaceburg.
Happy holidays from Joni, Oliver and myself.
