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Musicians rehearse for A Victorian Christmas Celebration, featuring harps and dulcimers. (Submitted photo )
Get ready for a Victorian Christmas Celebration, featuring a full combined ensemble of folk harps and hammer dulcimers.
The concert is at 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 23, in the Abundant Life Church, at 2430 Niagara Road.
“This is our final concert of the year, and our gift to the
community. For the past eight years, we have offered a free program on the last Friday afternoon before Christmas, since children are out of school, out of town guest may be visiting, and a daytime family oriented musical program can be a wonderful activity together for all ages,” said Robin Freed, harpist, teacher and concert coordinator.
“We also appreciate seeing many of our harp friends who attend many of our concerts during the year, and hope to see them this week.”
A Victorian Christmas Celebration will take you back in time. Along with the music, Lisa Rediger, manager of the Magic Circle Theatre, is allowing performers to wear the theater’s vintage hats.
“When we decided months ago to have a Victorian-themed program, it had to include the hats,” Freed said, giving Rediger a special thanks.
“Think back to the era of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol story. That is the period we want to portray through lively wassailing songs, and adding in the Irish hand drum, the Bodhran (‘bow ran’), finger cymbals and several hammer dulcimers to play with the harps. In keeping with the Victorian theme, the songs we will be playing are from the 1800s to early 1900s.”
All of the participants take lessons throughout the year from Freed, and range in ages from 11 to the 70s.
“I am so grateful to all who have worked hard to learn their instruments and all of the music,” Freed said.
Earlier in December, the ensemble played in Delta and Clifton with a smaller number of students.
“The Abundant Church is a perfect venue for this concert and we are so grateful for their opening their facility for this,” Freed added.
“We last played there for the Mother’s Day concert in May. With the large elevated stage, we can fit all of the instruments together and for the audience to see well. They also have a state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, and can comfortably seat around 150 people. We hope to have a large audience to come and relax for an hour during a very busy week.”
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