Home for the Holidays
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on January 2, 2019.
Voices soared at the Home for the Holidays concert, held in the Floyd EcoVillage’s Celebration Hall last Sunday afternoon. It was a collaboration and festive celebration of Floyd Center for the Arts and Blue Ridge Music Festival, hosted by Roanoke Symphony Orchestra Conductor and Artistic Director, David Stewart Wiley.
Wiley described the two-hour program as “a combination of holiday seasonal favorites, including a Hanukkah selection, with great classical favorites that complement the seasonal tunes.” “We hope the program is a source of peace and inspiration in an often too busy time,” he said to a full house of attendees.
Along with Maestro Wiley on piano, featured performers who claim distinguished resumes and honors in musical theater, opera and oratorios were his wife Leah Marer Wiley, Tara Bouknight and Philip Bouknight. David and Leah Wiley’s son Misha – a junior at Patrick Henry High School and the principal cellist of the PHHS Orchestra – played cello.
On a stage that was festively decorated as a home-for-the holidays living room, Wiley and Misha performed Brahms and Bach, with Wiley giving historic background to the inspiration behind the compositions. A selection from Handel’s The Messiah was performed, and Leah Wiley sang a holiday song in the German language and two Appalachian carols. The Bouknight’s breathtaking performance of “O Holy Night” ended the first segment of the program on a high note.
After a brief intermission, Philip Bouknight, a Lutheran minister, rounded out the masterful performances by reciting a moving letter from a WWI soldier who was chronicling a truce on Christmas Day in 1914 when German and British soldiers risked their lives to wish each other a happy Christmas. The recitation by Bouknight was followed by his performance of a song in honor of today’s soldiers who won’t be home with their families for the holidays. It was titled Bring Him Home.
The program closed with the group of performers singing You’ll Never Walk Alone and ended with a short chorus of We Wish You Merry Christmas. Performers received an enthusiastic standing ovation. Attendees enjoyed a meet-and-greet with the performers and a spread of refreshments
“Floyd is a sanctuary for music,” remarked attendee Randall Wells. Jack Wall commented that the Christmas music was “very beautiful and emotional” Shirley Ann Burgess said she was especially moved by the Christmas, 1914 reading. “It reminds us that we’re all the same in our hearts. Christmas and the holidays are about peace,” she said. – Colleen Redman
