ELK POINT – From their traditional opening number, ‘Just Let Me Sing!’ to the final notes of their equally traditional final, with former choir members coming from the audience to join them onstage for ‘Amazing Grace’, Elk Point Community Choir gave Friday’s appreciative audience the precious gift of their songs for the Christmas season.
Choir director Udo Mueller turned over his duties to daughter Kelsey Taylor in the second number of the program, and provided the piano accompaniment to ‘The Peace Carol’ before relinquishing the keys to the choir’s new pianist Mathis Poulin as he directed the choir in ‘Listen Children, Hear the Angels Sing’ with a solo by Anna Byelikova, the Christmas madrigal ‘O Come and Sing’ and ‘Little Bitty Baby.’
The choir took a brief break as Dixie Coleman gave the audience their own chance to sing, with Mueller at the piano for ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Silent Night’.
Taylor’s daughter and Mueller’s granddaughter Veronica Taylor served as the page-turner throughout the concert.
Then the choir was back, with Taylor directing ‘Sing a Joyful Alleluia’ with Poulin at the piano, Mueller playing the hand drum and Coleman with the shakers. Taylor took up her flute for the next number, ‘Lullaby of the Dove,’ before coming offstage to direct ‘Jesus, Oh, What a Wonderful Child’, with Mueller at the piano for the upbeat African American spiritual.
Poulin returned to the piano for the final three numbers, ‘Just One Star’, ‘Let There be Peace’ with a solo by Taylor, and ‘Amazing Grace’, which came after a heartfelt message from Mueller.
The choir was established in 1989 and has performed “Thousands of songs in the past 35 years,” Mueller said, giving the singers and audiences “An overwhelming sense of joy about the birth of Christ… In each song, there is a story told… woven together into a tapestry of song, the very essence of the Christmas spirit.”
Thanks to the audience, he continued, “You too shape the spirit of the concert, and bring it together.”
Following the closing number, Don Conrad took the microphone to announce that donations by those attending the concert added up to $820 in cash for the food bank, with nearly a dozen bags of non-perishable donations dropped off to support the same cause.
