Community, passion and joy.
Those are the words that keep repeating when the people who have put together the Sno-King Community Chorale are asked to describe their group.
They say they are a community group because they’ll take anyone. They have a passion for the music. And a real joy about sharing it.
“Every Tuesday when we get together, it’s not a rehearsal, it’s a songfest,” said the chorale’s conductor and artistic director, Frank DeMiero. “There’s a real sense of joy in this group, and the concert will truly bring a smile to your face.”
The concert DeMiero refers to is the chorale’s “A Holiday Concert” Saturday at the Edmonds Center for the Arts.
DeMiero guessed that the audience would be smiling during a tune called “Merry Christmas Mozart.” In this piece, the musicians play all kinds of short Mozart pieces as the chorale intersperses traditional Christmas words throughout.
“The music is lighthearted. The kind of music you walk away humming,” DeMiero said. “I try to do that with all my concerts.”
The first half of the concert will feature a musical written by DeMiero’s daughter-in-law, Debra DeMiero, called “The Magic of Music.”
Debra DeMiero is an adjunct professor at Edmonds Community College and a concert pianist.
The piece was conceived during a DeMiero family gathering at Thanksgiving when the group asked the question: “How do we best teach people about composers?”
Debra DeMiero figured that the obvious answer was through music.
Her musical is a fantasy in which a grandson enters his grandfather’s music room and stumbles upon a book called “The Magic of Music.”
The book is about composers. And as the boy flips through the book and asks his grandfather about the composers, they all appear – Bach, Mozart, Brahams, Gershwin – in their authentic dress of the time. Along with some provocative facts about the composers, the chorale sings various selections of their music.
In Saturday’s show, Frank DeMiero plays the grandfather and his real grandson plays his grandson. The conductor’s wife made the costumes.
In the end, the grandson asks if all the composers are dead. DeMiero answers that some are still alive, such as John Williams. Then the audience is treated to a bit of music from the movie “Star Wars.”
“It’s a fun show and down to earth,” DeMiero said. “My winter concerts are a little bit more on the lighter side.”
The second half of the concert will include a couple of selections from English composer John Rutter, who is well known for his beautiful melodies such as “Angels’ Carol,” DeMiero said.
The chorale will also do a tune from the movie “The Polar Express,” called “Believe,” and their version of “White Christmas,” in which the audience sings along.
Chorale president Marianna Hanefeld called the show “delightful music for all ages.”
“The very exciting thing about Sno-King as a community group is that it truly is a community group,” she said. “This is a non-audition chorale, and that makes us unique among chorales.”
Of the 90 voices in the chorale, some have never sung publicly before, others have never looked at music and there are those who hadn’t sung for 30 years. They range in age from 18 to over 80.
“And then you hear the caliber of the music and it is really remarkable,” Hanefeld said.
The chorale is gaining in reputation. A group of chorale members toured this past summer in Italy. The chorale is also doing more community outreach, having just sent 70 care packages to men and women in the armed services.
“These are just people who have big hearts,” DeMiero said.
Arts writer Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.
Sno-King Chorale photo
Members of Sno-King Community Chorale perform in the group’s 2006 pops concert “The Sound of Music.”
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