The Alaska Children's Choir will have its debut under the leadership of Jessie Eddings, with three holiday performances in the next nine days. Eddings took over as director of the group following the death of Janet Stotts this spring. Stotts had led the group for more than 20 years.
The choir will give its Christmas concerts at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, at St. John Lutheran Church in Palmer and at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, at Central Lutheran Church in Anchorage. In addition, they'll be part of the lineup at the traditional holiday music program at the Anchorage Museum, 1-4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13. Other musicians will include members of the Anchorage Concert Chorus and Carhartt Brothers. The children will sing at 2 p.m. By the way, museum admission is free on that day courtesy of Wells Fargo.
Other festive programs this weekend include "Christmas with the Alaska Chamber Singers" at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at St. Patrick's Church in Muldoon and 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Andrew Church in Eagle River. Anchorage Ballet will present "The Nutcracker" at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, in the Discovery Theatre. Principal roles will be danced by Bridgett Zehr and Oliver (Oli) Speers, whom local dance fans will remember from last year's "Giselle." Tickets for all of the above are available at centertix.net.
Seahawk star featured in Cambodian fundraiser
We first wrote about Chanda Ly, a Cambodian refugee who won a Mrs. Alaska pageant, last year in an article that noted her work feeding and educating children in her native country, selling cookies at a gas station to raise funds. Ly now has plans for a bigger-than-ever event that will take place in the Sheraton ballroom on April 2 next year. The guest list for the Cambodian Children Foundation Alaska Third Annual Charity Gala includes Seattle Seahawk linebacker Bobby Wagner, who has made more Super Bowl tackles than any player in history (22). The Seahawks apparently expect him to keep up the good work; in August they extended his contract for five more years for the sum of $43 million.
Ly's nonprofit group has been supporting a village school getting food, computers and English lessons to 45 underprivileged kids under the instruction of a single teacher. "If you speak, read and write in English and have some computer skills, the chance of getting a decent-paying job is much greater than for those who do not," Ly said. She described a "good paying" job in Cambodia as bringing in $150-$200 a month.
It's a start, but Ly, who grew up in a refugee camp after her parents escaped the Pol Pot "killing fields" 35 years ago, has much bigger dreams. "My plan is to educate not just 45 children, but hundreds or thousands of them," she said.
And thus the big step of calling in a big star and taking the big risk of renting one of the swankiest venues in Alaska. It seems like a huge act of faith to me, even with the draw of a Seahawks star. And how did she get him? "I networked," she said.
The gala will feature a gourmet meal with wines, cultural performances, silent auction, dancing for the diners and the chance to get photos with Wagner and his autograph. While April 2 is a ways out, we suspect this could be a hot ticket given the number of Seahawks fans in Anchorage. And tickets might make a coveted Christmas gift for the Hawk booster who has everything. High rollers may want to consider a whole table. Tickets and information are available at cambodianchildren.net. Or you can call Ly herself at 907-223-0206.
Kantner book a regional best-seller
"Swallowed by the Great Land" by Alaska author Seth Kantner, who spends most of his time in the Kotzebue area, was No. 10 on the paperback nonfiction best-seller list issued by the Pacific Northwest Independent Booksellers on Dec. 6. The book consists of essays, several of which were first published in the Alaska Dispatch News/Anchorage Daily News, including the very impressive title piece about an adventurer who disappears in the Arctic.
This looks like the first appearance by the book on the regional listing, which often includes works that sell well in Seattle and Portland, though they may not make the national lists. Since the book was released in August, that suggests that people are increasingly buying on the advice of friends rather than initial publicity, which is probably a good sign.
Mural for St. Mary's
For the past month or so, in a studio on Northern Lights Boulevard in Anchorage, Patrick Minock has been working on a three-part mural for the new Andreafski High School gym in St. Mary's on the Lower Yukon. Minock, son of the late, esteemed artist Milo Minock, shows his work widely but is perhaps best known to Alaskans as the illustrator of Sandra Kleven's book "Talk about Touch." He was originally from Pilot Station, the next town upriver from St. Mary's.
The new mural is composed of three pieces, all of which are "very odd shaped," as Minock put it. A center triangle-shaped piece, 6 feet on a side, shows St. Mary's viewed at a distance from across the wetland at the mouth of the Andreafski River, which separates St. Mary's from Pilot Station. Two trapezoidal paintings on either side depict moose hunters in boats and a fish camp. All feature the tundra landscape prominently.
"Tundra is the common thing for everyone out there," Minock said. "As far as you can see. When I was a kid, my dad had me out there a lot in a canoe."
Minock's triptych is only part of the art that will go into the gym. Other paintings and a bidarka are also underway. In addition to the landscape scenes, Minock is making a separate life-size figure of a hunter from the torso up, clasping an atl-atl of the kind still used for hunting seal at the mouth of the Yukon. It will go with the bidarka.
The work in acrylic paint is almost done, Minock said. His deadline is Dec. 15. The new facility is expected to open in January with some fanfare.
Jazz at Trinity
Todd Allen, interim pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church, reports that the Monday night benefit concert held at the church was a success. The performers were members of the Anchorage Jazz Ensemble with featured soloist Brenda Vulgamore. The ensemble will do another concert at the church next summer.
It's not the first time Trinity has hosted jazz. Sax man Rick Zelinsky and crew played there in 2013, at which time Zelinsky described the venue as "a VERY nice place for a concert."
Juneau vital records digitized
Call it a labor of love. Lifelong Juneau resident Betty Miller has completed a 15-year project going through old editions of Juneau newspapers from 1898 to 1936 to find every birth, death and marriage listed therein. The completed work, in six volumes, includes an alphabetical list of all names and a chronological list of events noting the page and column on which each item was published. It is available online from the Alaska State Library at library.alaska.gov/vitalRecords/vitalrecordsADE.html.
Nellie Brown inducted in Pioneers
Speaking of old-timers, the Pioneers of Alaska, Women's Igloo No. 4 approved the posthumous induction of Nellie Brown into its membership at their September meeting. Brown, who died in 1978, was among the first residents of what is now Anchorage, a model for the paintings of Sydney Laurence and the main subject of a chapter in Charles Wohlforth's history of Anchorage, "From the Shores of Ship Creek."
According to Bobbie Bianchi, a member of the Anchorage Historic Preservation Commission who requested Brown's induction, "It was Nellie's great wish to join the Pioneers of Alaska." Bianchi learned of Brown's desire from her longtime neighbor, Mary Barry, who is now a neighbor of Bianchi's.
However, when the Anchorage Igloo was formed in 1917 -- five years after Nellie and her husband, Jack, arrived -- she was not eligible. The Pioneers' website notes that when the group was founded, membership was restricted to white males who had come to Alaska before 1900. Nellie was an Eyak tribe member from Cordova. Women were admitted in auxiliary Igloos (local chapters) after the territorial legislature extended voting rights to women. (Which is why the Anchorage Igloo is No. 15 but the Anchorage Women's Igloo is No. 4.)
Racial restrictions were completely eliminated in 1982, by which point it was getting hard to find white men who were here before 1900. The current criterion for membership is being anyone who has lived in Alaska for 30 years.
In its century-plus existence, the Pioneers have been particularly active in lobbying for senior citizens, pushing for old-age and handicap pensions, help for the mentally ill and the establishment of Pioneers Homes. Anchorage residents will be familiar with the pancake breakfasts they serve up during Fur Rendezvous.
There are currently 16 Igloos around the state and an equal number that have passed into history as boom towns like Ophir and Candle depopulated. The most recent men's and women's chapters were organized in 2012 in Haines.