Coming Home

The title of this new recording has many meanings for us. The first is that all of the members of the band are now from the Wichita area. This allows us all to be "home" for the Christmas season while we are performing in the band.

The second is that many of these arrangements were written when Jeanne Anne and I were in other places of the country. The inspiration and motivation to write and prepare these pieces, however, stemmed from their thoughts of "coming home" for the holidays and playing this music with the band for the Wichita and surrounding communities.

Another reason for choosing this album title came from our 2003 concert season. This past season we shared a couple of concerts with some musical groups from the Wichita area. These concerts included the Friends University Percussion Ensemble, the Jade string quartet, and the Wichita Community Children's Choir. Though we may never be able to organize 90+ musicians for a concert again, these unique concerts were very memorable for us. So much so, that we decided to include some of the arrangements that we used for these groups, on this new album ("God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" has the string quartet and percussion ensemble parts included and "Blessed Be" and "What Child is This" have the Wichita Children's Community Choir!).

Lastly, even though the band has experienced some popularity growth in the past few years, we have still chosen to continue "coming home" to perform these Appalachian Christmas Quartet concerts. In the past few years there have been many opportunities for us to perform in other places around the country, but at this point we have all chosen to keep our Christmas time performances in the Wichita, KS area. Someday this could change for us, but for now we wanted to title this album in a way that would remind us of where we have chosen - and had the opportunity - to perform. This title will also remind us of the community that has continued to support our band since the beginning of the Appalachian Christmas Quartet!

How/When

The arranging and writing for Coming Home occurred over the past 3 years. The "Nutcracker Suite" was the first arrangement written for this album and was completed in 2001 in preparation for our 2002 concerts. "Good Christian Men Rejoice," "Angels We Have Heard on High," and "Simple Gifts" are our most recent arrangements and were started and finished in the studio in July 2004. We have performed some of the arrangements on Coming Home in our concerts during the past 2 Christmas seasons. However, there are 6 new arrangements on this album that we have never performed live.

New Member

Since our last recording, Gloria, the band has added a violin/viola/percussion/mandolin player Rob Loren. The addition of Rob Loren has added a new dynamic to the band's sound that will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with our music. Rob's musical experiences have ranged from classical and orchestral to improvised folk and jazz, and his professional career in music ranges from performer/arranger to teacher. Rob is one of those unique musicians that understands and appreciates all of the different facets of music and is constantly looking to better understand music and musicians. For anyone who attended one of our 2003 concerts, you also know that Rob is a very genuine and kind person who is willing to take the time to talk with whomever, about whatever. We are very fortunate to now have Rob Loren as a member of the Appalachian Christmas Quartet.

5th Member?

Well that is a good question and one that we are asked often. Rob Farmer, who has "sat in" with the band for over 4 years now has often been seen by the people at our concerts as a 5th member. In actuality Rob is our friend and comrade when it comes to helping us out. Since a "quartet" is only supposed to have 4 people in it, we have kept the "official" band members at four, however Rob's contributions to the band have been many! In addition to helping us out with set-up and tear-down for every show, Rob also plays on about 60% of the music that we do in a live concert. He also helps us with our creative "brainstorming" sessions, helps us with sound balance at concerts, has contributed to photos in the scrapbooks, and even contributed as an arranger for the opening song of this new album - "Good Christian Men Rejoice." The band would be at a loss without Rob and all of what he does for us during the Christmas seasons and throughout the year. It might be getting close to deciding whether it is practical, or even correct to be a 5 person quartet?

The Music

"Good Christian Men Rejoice" - We worked for some time to figure out how best to start this album. After many failed attempts we went to the hymnal and realized that the opening song for the album was right there. This beautiful hymn fit perfectly for us on the lap dulcimer, guitar, bodhran, violin and accordion.

"O Christmas Tree" - is an arrangement that features mandolin, mandola, guitar and the melodica. The percussion on this song is a washboard, bass drum, tom and brake drum, which is the reason that we noted the drum set on the CD liner notes as "back porch" drum set. This arrangement was performed in 2002 but we were not completely happy with it then, so we went back to the "drawing board" to change it up a little and get it ready for this album.

"Gesu Bambino" - was arranged to explore some timbres and instruments that we rarely get to use in the band. Gesu Bambino opens with a recorder quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), and moves into pizz. violin, muffled marimba and pizz. bass. Also included in this arrangement are the chime lyres that were made for us a few years back by our friend Jim Steck, these are metal tubes that he cut just right so that we have different pitches and then he attached them to 2x4's in rows of 12 pipes. Another instrument that we used on this arrangement is the cello. We were fortunate enough to have Matt Slocum (Sixpence None the Richer) come over to the studio and play on a few of the songs for the album. I think that it is safe to say that this arrangement is the closest that the Appalachian Christmas Quartet has ever come to sounding like an orchestral group. It is fun for us to play more serious arrangements as long as there are not too many of them!

"Jingle Bells/Jolly Old St. Nick" - this is a fun arrangement for us to perform, and was also fun to record. In addition to the accordion, flute, bass and mandolin, "sir" jack-a-lope added quite a few fun percussion sounds.

"Do You Hear What I Hear" - features a friend of the band's Jason Scheufler playing the nylon string guitar for the melody, while steel string guitar, mandola and harmony guitar accompany this arrangement. We chose to keep this arrangement simple and allow the sounds of the instruments to speak clearly. This arrangement has never been performed live.

"Crown Him With Many Crowns" - this arrangement was originally written for percussion quartet. After going over the songs that we would be putting on this recording we decided that we would like to have another hymn represented, and one with a unique musical "feel," so we re-worked a few things and figured out a way to make this arrangement work for the band. This arrangement features the marimba, mandolin, bells, chime lyres, bass and some percussion.

"Angels We Have Heard on High" - coming into the recording session all that we had was a chord progression and a "bluesy" feel in mind. We asked our friend Phil Keaggy to play an instrument that he had never played before, the dobro. In the same spirit of the Appalachian Christmas Quartet, he said, "sure, I'll give it a shot". It took Phil about 5 minutes of playing around on the dobro before he decided to start recording!!! We are very happy with the way this arrangement turned out and thankful, once again to have Phil play on another one of our recordings.

"Simple Gifts" - what album is complete without body percussion, boomwhackers, harmonica, thumb piano, giggle sticks, chromatic desk bells, autoharp, kazoos and a tin can?

"What Child is This" (see below)

"The Nutcracker Suite" - how can you go wrong with a great piece of music like this? Well..... we thought, as we have in the past, that if the mandolin family plays a piece like this with a few changes, a couple of slides and a few strums we might be able to add a little humor to such a serious work.

"Lament" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" - the Lament is a short musical interlude into God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. This Lament was purely improvised by me and Jeanne Anne and intended to explore the beauty of the sounds of the marimba and the pennywhistle. After the improvising of the marimba and the pennywhistle, the others were able to add instrumentation that enhanced the overall feel of the song. The Lament starts off a two-song dedication to Bob Tack and his family. The first hammered dulcimer that the Appalachian Christmas Quartet ever used was one of Bob's. He built custom hammered dulcimers for many years and was widely respected in the hammered dulcimer community as one of its finest craftsmen. Bob was a friend and consult to me for many years helping me with any hammered dulcimer questions or problems that would arise and even came to watch me perform when in the Michigan area. This year Bob passed away suddenly, and we as a band decided that we wanted to mark his memory and his instruments forever in our history. With this decided, we put together this two-song dedication to celebrate his memory, thank his family and to feature one of his hammered dulcimers (God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen).

"What Child is This" and "Blessed Be" - both feature the outstanding Wichita Community Children's Choir under the direction of Marilyn Killian. In 2003 we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to perform with the WCCC for 2 of our Christmas performances. For these performances we arranged/composed some music for the choir and when it came time to select the songs for this album, we chose these two arrangements with the WCCC. We recorded the choir and piano in Wichita at Cornerstone Studios in Jan. of 2004 and then transferred these recordings to Nashville in July to finish the instrumental work. We are very thankful to Marilyn Killian and the WCCC for being a part of this past year with us. What Child is This explores an "intense" minor key introduction and verses but then jumps to an Appalachian flavored refrain. Blessed Be is an original Christmas song written and arranged by Jeanne Anne and me for the Appalachian Christmas Quartet and the Wichita Community Children's Choir.

Thank You

Once again, this little band from Wichita, KS has gone to the big music city of Nashville TN and came out of there with another recording. There are many reasons why this "story" is so unbelievable. One of them would have to be that this band has had the successes that it has without having to sign any contracts or give up any of our artistic rights to do the music we want, the way we want to do it. We have also chosen to stay in one area of the country, and that area has taken care of us!

The Appalachian Christmas Quartet is a very unique group in many ways and we are thankful for all of the wonderful times we have had, and look forward to many more to come. Thank you again for all of your generous support throughout the years, we will continue to try and find fun, exciting musical ways to share the wonderful celebration of Christmas with you!

We hope that you enjoy our newest recording project Coming Home.

p.s. Jack wants to let you know that he is still living safe in Wichita anticipating the arrival of his wife Pearl. He also wants you to know that he has some new tricks up his antlers for next season's concerts.