We have sidetracked politics for a moment on grounds that
this holiday season offers a time for reprieve. There is anxiety
enough these days to fuel burning uncertainties and smoldering
fears; dwelling on the perversions that subvert our
state and haunt our republic only sour the moment. Instead
we move away from disputation and into the certitudes and
blessings that give us joy, and leave us with some hope.
On Saturday Dec. 9, we attended an evening series of halfhour
performances of talented local musicians at the Swedish
Pavilion in Heritage Square: Prairie Wind Harps; the Silver
Tones Flute Choir; the musician and story-teller Thad Beach;
the barber shop group, Men in Harmony. Here was Christmas
music, much of it exquisite and inspiring, building to The
Smoky Valley Men’s Choir.
This Choir performs at a level often found in the world’s
great halls, and yet here they were in the superbly acoustic
Pavilion, bass thundering up through baritone, carrying into
the multi-octave tenors and inspiring the kind of adulation
that leaves an audience, for one thrilling moment, struck with
awe. For those who have been elsewhere and heard others,
this Men’s Choir may rival the unrivaled. Local farmers,
bankers, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, preachers, social
workers, students, builders, businessmen, three and a half
dozen unified perfectly in voice. Their individual partisan
persuasions, their elective inclinations and all that go with
them vanish into at that first glorious note. The effect is
majestic, uplifting, an impermeable luster.
The Mennonite Friends concluded, a Chorus with folk harmony
clear as country and with a ringing, boisterous finale of
Merry Christmas! It all brought a rare and requisite feeling,
a sense that nothing else can surpass the power of radiant,
harmonic sound. People singing, bringing us out of darkness
and away with them, away to the landscapes of hosanna,
resplendence, Gloria.
