Kiwanians learn history of Galion Community Chorus

Esther Mendell

Cho­rus mem­bers prac­tice dic­tion under the direc­tion of John Sikora (left) dur­ing rehearsal Mon­day, Nov. 28. The 57th per­for­mance of Handel’s Mes­siah will be per­formed by the Galion Com­mu­nity Cho­rus and Orches­tra this Sun­day after­noon, Dec. 4, at 3 p.m. The con­cert is free. The pub­lic is invited. Come to First United Church of Christ and hear the sal­va­tion story retold in song.

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Before there was Mr. Krichbaum’s “Mes­siah,” there was William Hood Critzer’s.

David Gale, third-year pres­i­dent of the Galion Com­mu­nity Cho­rus that per­forms Handel’s “Mes­siah” each year, addressed the Kiwa­nis Club at its reg­u­lar meet­ing Tues­day, Nov. 29, telling mem­bers about the his­tory of the Galion cho­ruses that have per­formed “The Mes­siah” since the 19th century.

In the mid 1890s, Gale said, a com­mu­nity cho­rus formed that per­formed each Christ­mas until 1924. Like today’s cho­rus, the choir was accom­pa­nied by an orches­tra. The instru­men­tal­ists were a mix of local high-school tal­ent and musi­cians brought in from Cleve­land, Colum­bus or Cincinnati—not an easy accom­plish­ment in the days of train travel, Gale said. Critzer was the first direc­tor for that cho­rus. The three-decade run ended a few years after World War I.

Another Galion­ite, Hart­ley Sny­der, tried to revive the com­mu­nity pro­duc­tion in 1934, but no record exists of per­for­mances in the years after­ward, so Gale’s sources con­cluded that the revival had been short-lived.

Herb Krich­baum received the chal­lenge to revive Galion’s “Mes­siah” cho­rus again just after he was hired on as the Galion high school choir direc­tor. “Appar­ently he said, ‘show up with 75 choral mem­bers and I’ll do it,” Gale recounted. “And the rest is his­tory.” Krich­baum cul­ti­vated local tal­ent exclu­sively and directed the choir a cap­pella for 30 years before step­ping down. A vari­ety of oth­ers directed the cho­rus after Krich­baum before cur­rent direc­tor John Sikora took over.

“John kind of went back to the 1890s to mix tal­ent,” Gale said. The mod­ern com­mu­nity cho­rus is accom­pa­nied by pro­fes­sional instru­men­tal­ists and soloists, some­times from within Galion but usu­ally aug­mented by oth­ers from out of town. The cho­rus pur­chased a harp­si­chord in 2007, Gale said, to avoid the “logis­ti­cal night­mare” of hav­ing to con­tin­u­ally bor­row one.

The soloists for this year’s per­for­mance are all col­lege voice stu­dents. “We’re very, very excited because that goes in the direc­tion we want to be headed,” Gale said.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the his­tory of the Galion Com­mu­nity Cho­rus and about Handel’s “Mes­siah” will be printed in the pro­gram for the Sun­day performance.

Dur­ing the busi­ness por­tion of the meet­ing, Kiwa­ni­ans received updates on Toys for Tots dona­tions. Robyn Min­n­ear, head of the Toys for Tots com­mit­tee, said the com­mu­nity had been “very gra­cious” and shelves would be suf­fi­ciently stocked for this year. Mem­bers will gather Wednes­day and Fri­day evenings to price and orga­nize the toys.

Kiwa­nis pres­i­dent Doug Greene said Pete Waite had agreed to chair the new “Inter­net com­mit­tee” to estab­lish a viable web pres­ence, espe­cially on Facebook.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Nov 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.