First the details: The Smoky Valley Men’s Choir will
perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, December 9, at the Swedish
Pavilion in Heritage Square north of the McPherson County
Old Mill Museum. The performance is part of a Pavilion
program of music as part of the Museum’s annual Old
Fashioned Christmas festival that day.
Now the advice: Don’t miss the music. Beginning at 5
p.m., Pavilion performances every half-hour will feature
a range of the secular and sacred, starting with the Prairie
Wind Harps. At 5:30, the Silver Tones Flute Choir; at 6 p.m.,
the instrumental and vocal talent of Thad Beach; at 6:30,
Men in Harmony followed by the Smoky Valley Men’s Choir
at 7. The final performance will be the Mennonite Friends
Chorus.
The program seems intended to build toward the Men’s
Choir, three and a half dozen men, under direction of Leah
Ann Anderson. They are as close to exquisite as any group
of its kind, talent bound in clarity, range and resonance. As
we have said before, such music is firm evidence that art is
good for the soul.
‒ JOHN MARSHALL
