Reading Community Singers in Joyful Program for the Season

“Holiday Hits” had traditional songs plus some surprises.

 Lia BenDaniel, Pete Koster, Aymon Langlois, and Abby La Terza were selected by music director Beth Mosier from among her youthful contacts to perform a song of thanksgiving for our many earthly delights, “Look at the World” by John Rutter.

 Justin Wilde and Doug Konecky’s “Light the Candles of Freedom” encourages all of us, regardless of our nation or our customs, to create a single celebration when we could light our candles and let them shine in harmony all around the world.

 A choral medley of Irving Berlin tunes including “White Christmas,” “Snow,” “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep” and “Sisters” allowed the chorus to shine.  “Sisters” included a “variety act” featuring Alan Beaulieu and Steve Crockett showing their sisterly affection, which was received with guffaws from the audience.

 To give a short respite to the singers, guest artists  8-year-old Fiddlin’ Quinn Eastburn and his father Chris played “A Holiday Bluegrass Suite” composed of traditional tunes such as “Old Joe Clark” and “Orange Blossom Special” for which guitar-playing Chris had written new Christmas lyrics.  Chris is a local composer, arranger and supporter of amateur singing. Quinn has studied violin using the Suzuki method and is quite adept at playing classical music, but he also demonstrated some fancy down-home fiddling.   The duo also played and sang a couple of country gospel favorites, and a song that Quinn helped write called “Bugs Have Dads Who Bug Them Too.”  From the response by the listeners, you’d have thought we were at a hootenanny, with clapping and stomping, hooting and hollering.

 Santa Claus arrived in the middle of the performance, throwing out candy and spreading good cheer. I can’t help but think this was case of identity theft, though, since his jersey clearly said Ortiz and he kept talking about red sox.

Al Mosier led a rendition of The Chipmunk Song (Can you believe those squeaky rodents are still with us after nearly 60 years?), but Alvin's antics had spread to the entire bass section.

 After a sing-along of familiar Christmas songs which allowed the listeners to show off their pipes, much of the second half of the concert was dedicated to contemporary pop tunes devoted to Christmas, although the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah” was included.  “The Prayer” ended the evening in a solemn fashion with a wish for peace

Reading Community Singers is a mixed chorus looking for young and old singers who want to share music with the community.  If you are interested in singing, check out http://readingcommunitysingers.org/.