Natalie Grove
After a six-year hiatus, founder Paul Rowton returns this year to direct Sweet Home’s Singing Christmas Tree.
The Singing Christmas Tree is a non-auditioned volunteer choir made up of 30 members from the Sweet Home and Lebanon area.
“We really see this as a gift to the community of Sweet Home and Linn County,” said Coordinator Sue Olson. “We give the gift of starting the Christmas season with music.”
The choir is glad to have Rowton back. Olson said, “Everything he does is a pleasure. He is the inevitable teacher. Whenever he’s here he puts so much energy into everything.”
Rowton was the original director of the Tree for its first 25 years. Rowton was a music teacher at Sweet Home High School when one of his students, Connie Nice, asked him if he would direct a Singing Christmas Tree like her own back in Phoenix, Ariz., if she organized everything.
“Well, I said yeah I’d do it because I didn’t think she would do it – but she did,” he said.
Rowton has always had a love for music. As a child, he would harmonize with his sisters while picking beans and berries in the summer fields around Lebanon. When he was in high school, one day a year all classes were taught by students. With encouragement from his English teacher, Rowton taught both an English class and choir.
“It was really fun. I didn’t have an idea of what I wanted to do after high school, so I thought – why not be a teacher?”
While at Cascade College, Rowton learned from choir director Herb Brow.
“He really instilled a love of choir music and performing – and the love of doing it right.” Rowton went on to teach choir and music classes at Sweet Home High School for 28 years.
At 5:30 a.m. on a morning this past March, Rowton said, he had a dream, woke, and composed a piece – a song for a Christmas program.
That night, Rowton attended a meeting at which it was announced that the former director, Don Bacher of Albany, was stepping down and a new leader was needed. Rowton was asked to direct, and accepted.
“Without that dream, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said, “I felt it was something I needed to do.”
Now he is back directing the Singing Christmas Tree once again.
“It’s very special to me.” Rowton said.
Joining him is pianist Bill Langdon, who has accompanied the choir for 20 years. Cellist Keith Scofield and percussionist Ed Knox will also be accompanying. Wayne Knox will provide prelude music on guitar.
This year’s program theme is “Christmas on the Red Carpet” featuring music from Irving Berlin and other Broadway-style hits.
Performances will be at at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 6 and 7, and at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, in the Sweet Home High School Auditorium.
The Singing Christmas Tree is always looking for singers. If you are interested, contact Rowton at (541) 367-5695.