La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

The Skagit Valley Chorale and friends are bringing audiences a musical time capsule of life in mid-twentieth century America on May 4 and 5.

Artistic Director Yvette Burdick has assembled a unique program of music originally performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, one of America’s most popular entertainment ensembles in the last century.

Under Waring the Pennsylvanians grew from a small jazz band whose members often put down their instruments and sang, to a 60-piece ensemble with big band, strings, glee club and soloists who regularly toured and criss-crossed the country each year.

They were the first band to appear in the movies, the first to broadcast coast-to-coast on radio, the first to have a musical television show broadcast nationwide.

Waring left a vast amount of material from more than 60 years of Pennsylvanians’ history to Fred Waring’s America, an archive at Pennsylvania State University.

Burdick went to study original instrumental and vocal parts from 80 years ago, then created modern editions for the Chorale and players to recreate those vibrant jazzy sounds. Local bandleader Vince Fejeran chimed in to assemble a big band of top Skagit Valley players to add extra sizzle and pop to the Chorale’s performance.

Burdick has been joined by her longtime collaborator David Schroeder of Port Townsend, whose witty and nostalgic script frames the action while poking fun at life and technology in 1952, from telephone operator exchanges in a “Dragnet” sketch to a tongue-in-cheek guide to using the new technology, television.

The performances take place at McIntyre Hall, 2501 E. College Way, Mount Vernon. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 4, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 5. Tickets can be purchased online at mcintyrehall.org, or 360-416-7727, or in person at the box office.