Home for the Holidays concerts raise $15,000

The New Richland area “Home for the Holidays” concerts featuring home-grown musicians Gavin Berg, Adam Moen, Eva Wayne and Ellen Johnson brought in about 375 people and $10,000 in immediate donations across three performances, held at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5 and at 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Trinity Lutheran Church in New Richland. An anonymous donation matching up to $5,000 brought the total for the weekend to more than $15,000.

 

All monies raised will be added to the interest-earning investments of the New Richland Area Foundation. The interest will be used to support projects and causes in the NRHEG communities of New Richland, Hartland, Ellendale and Geneva. Organizations seeking funding can refer to the Foundation’s Facebook page for application information.

 

This is the fourth year Berg, Moen and Wayne have performed at a concert to benefit the Foundation; Johnson joined them for the first time in 2024.  In previous years, performances were offered on Friday and Saturday evenings; 2025 is the first time three performances have been given. All three, according to Berg, were nearly identical in terms of the music and scheduling, although differences did occur in the extemporaneous banter and conversation among the performers. 

 

One popular element of the concert, used for the second year, is to surprise an audience member just prior to intermission with the news she or he will be providing percussion elements for the song “Sleigh Ride” when the concert resumes. On Friday evening, New Richland resident Pam Shurson was informed she would be providing all percussion sounds–which include sleigh bells, trotting, the crack of a whip, and a horse’s “neigh”--unless at least $2,000 was collected during intermission. At the $2,000 level, Shurson would be allowed to bring one friend to the front; at $3,000 she could bring a second companion, and if $5,000 were raised, Berg’s and Moen’s mothers would join the crew.

 

The lighthearted bribe apparently brought considerable sympathy from the 170 people present on Friday; a bit more than $3,000 was collected and Shurson was able to bring her sisters Jeanne Waldhauser and Kathy Hinkley to the front to help. Though Berg mentioned shortly after the intermission that “Pam Shurson is not happy with us,” the sisters took on the role of percussionists with energy and good humor, even dancing as they played their respective instruments. When it came time for the horse to neigh, all three leaned in together and produced a team’s worth of equine commentary.

 

Percussionists for the Saturday afternoon concert began with Lori Anderson, who was able to bring up her husband Randy and friend Cindy Holland. In the evening, Heidi Jacobson was surprised with the news she had been selected; she brought up Stacy Stork and Wendy Schultz as her assistants.

 

Musical numbers during the 90-minute concert were a rich combination of solo performances, duets, and all four musicians at once. Berg played two original piano arrangements, Moen sang “White Christmas,” which Berg joked he was singing “for the eighth time this week,” since Moen is a cast member for the musical currently showing at Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Wayne played some of her keyboard pieces on the church’s pipe organ. Johnson sang both solo numbers and duets with Moen.

 

As Berg observed a number of times during the performance, “It’s nice to have talented friends.”

 

Betsy Bartness, whose family experienced a house fire this past year, told the crowd she had learned, “Home is not four walls and a roof.”

 

Instead, she said, to be “home” is to be part of a caring community, something she experienced when people began dropping off meals, clothing, and toys, erasing her perception that she had been left “homeless” by the fire.

 

“This community stepped up to help me and my family,” said Bartness. “And I knew I was at home.”

 

Shared during the concerts was the poem “The Work of Christmas” by Howard Thurman:

“When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.”