ORANGE — Bob Ellison has penned a jazzy swing tune he plans to debut at the Orange-Athol Community Chorus’ concert on Sunday. And he expects it to be a big hit with kids.
“When I say the ‘kids’ — those are the ones who are 50 and younger,” Ellison says with a chuckle.
At 83, he has a specific perspective on what constitutes youth. But he says anyone young and old is invited to his final community Christmas concert, slated for 1:30 p.m. at Orange Town Hall. Ellison, once the longtime music teacher and chorus and band instructor at Ralph C. Mahar Regional School, said he expects numerous former students from his decades-long career and others to take part in one last show.
In the years since his retirement as director of music at Mahar in 1993, Ellison has organized about 15 of the community Christmas concerts.
“The chorus is meant to be an … outpouring of the fact that everybody deserves to be in music of some kind. They all deserve music,” he says. “Music is for everyone — not just the superstars.”
The new song is titled “Santa Claus is Coming and He’s Coming Very Soon.”
Ellison shares a warm, cozy home on Walnut Hill Road with Ann-Marie Ellison, his wife of 63 years. The house contains a musical sanctuary, a room that includes his Roland digital piano and an older Gulbransen. He no longer plays the Gulbransen — it serves as a set of shelves for the Ellisons’ children and grandchildren — but the Roland is ready for a tune at a moment’s notice. The digital piano’s easel sports a folder with a handwritten TD Bank sticky note reading “ORIGINAL SCORES.”
Ellison says the final Christmas concert will feature holiday classics in addition to his own work. Another of his songs, “Make It Christmas Eve (Every Night of the Year),” highlights the joy and excitement of the night before Christmas and encourages everyone to spread love and kindness every day. Ellison says he will likely also play his favorite original, “Youth Will Serve,” a song he wrote in 1970 to protest American involvement in the war in Vietnam. He said students asked him to compose the song after a former student “came back in a coffin.”
“In the young and growing years / As we look through eyes of tears / Will these problems never end? / Will our youth be served?” the songs goes.
Orange resident Carol Stockwell says she always participates in Ellison’s Christmas choruses and will sing on Sunday.
“He’s a great man — that’s all I can say. I love working with him. I’m sorry this is his last year,” she says. “I don’t think anyone can ever fill his shoes. I can’t say enough about him. I just love the guy.”
Stockwell says she met Ellison in the late 1970s or early 1980s, through her husband, who attended Mahar.
“I love singing the stuff that he wrote. I love that he brings it to the concert,” she says. “He’s an awesome director. I don’t know how anyone can have more ability than he. He’s what I call a true musician, to a T.”
Ellison says everyone is welcome to participate in the concert. The final rehearsal is scheduled for Saturday, from 9:30 to 11 a.m.
Former student Kate Mock Hart, who graduated in 1976, said she signed up for the Christmas concert after learning it is Ellison’s final one. She says she lived in Seattle for many years before returning to western Massachusetts. She says Ellison was her chorus and band instructor.
“When I saw this was going to be his last concert, there was no question that I was going to participate,” she says. “(The first rehearsal) gave me an opportunity to understand, as a 58-year-old adult, why the teenager Kate benefited so much from participation in his music program. … It reminded me of his very unique ways of instructing. He does a lot of instructing as he directs. His descriptive words that he uses to bring talent forward is very effective.”
Hart says she, like many other American teenagers, had a difficult time in high school, but music helped her through it.
“It really saved me,” she says. “It was enjoyable. I had a chance to connect with other peers, something to excel at. It was just plain fun.”
Deerfield resident Posie Ellison, one of the Ellisons’ six children, says the Christmas concerts are consistently well attended.
“It’s free. My dad doesn’t charge anything for it. Most of it is just straight Christmas carols, so people know it and sing along — and that’s always fun,” she says.
Ellison got his musical start as a 6-year-old singing in the boys choir at St. Joseph Parish in his hometown of Somerville, though he didn’t attend the church school. He says a teacher named Ms. Wiggins recognized his talent and encouraged him to pursue music, which he studied at Lowell State College before starting his career in Ludlow, Vt. He eventually moved to Orange to work at Mahar, though he took some years off in the middle to work in the insurance business.
In addition to his musical prowess, Ellison is a storyteller, seemingly always locked and loaded with an anecdote about music or his baseball and basketball days. Eventually, his wife will try to pull a conversation back to its topic.
“I came to rescue you,” she tells the reporter at one point of an interview, walking into their living room. “He’ll talk to you all night.”
Ellison’s illustrious career is chronicled in a modest scrapbook he keeps. It contains old photographs of students and letters from a wide range of dignitaries that include Greenfield Community College President Lewis O. Turner, Rodney Hunt Co. President Earl Harris, and Corneliu Bogdan, ambassador to the United States from the former Socialist Republic of Romania.
Another letter, signed by former Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1976, thanks Ellison for his kindness during Dukakis’ trip to Mahar.
“Also, please convey my thanks to all of the band members who played so brilliantly upon my arrival,” the letter reads. “It was a rare treat to listen to one of Massachusetts’ finest high school bands.”
Ellison says he hopes many more of those former awe-inspiring musicians will appear in his final concert.
“I just want them to have a final concert with me, where we have a great time,” he says.
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.
On Twitter: @DomenicPoli