Middletown’s Nancy Scharff — and a heavenly host of helpers — present their annual celebration of Christmas in words and music Friday at the Count Basie Theatre.
As the founder of Nancy Scharff Ministries, Middletown-based Christian music artist Nancy Scharff is a globe-trotting singer-songwriter, choirmaster, music educator, producer, conductor, facilitator and a shepherdess tending her flock — so there’s no question she can be a one-woman show when the situation warrants.
But when the curtain goes up on the Count Basie stage this Friday night, December 16, the celebration entitled Nancy Scharff: Christmas — The Gift of Love teams the diminutive dynamo with an orchestra of 16 players, a six-piece contemporary Christian pop band, an ecumenical choir (featuring, in past performances, some 65 voices), an all-star gospel ensemble, a children’s choir that’s numbered as many as 80 kids — plus “Three Tenors” tenoring, and some two dozen bell choir ringers ringing.
Do the math and it tallies up to nearly 200 performers — a total that doesn’t even take into consideration the expected opportunities for the audience to get into the act.
But in this fifth annual edition of a Red Bank tradition that began in 2007 with Make Room in Your Heart, it’s all about the positive energy and the good things that happen when an all-volunteer interdenominational group of Monmouth County people does something nice for their neediest neighbors.
“We go to Brownie troops, all different church groups — anywhere it’s possible to reach people,” says the lifelong Middletown resident and longtime music director at King of Kings Lutheran Church, who first performed her own self-penned songs in public at the New Monmouth house of worship.
Scharff, who’s also taught at Red Bank’s Monmouth Conservatory Of Music and the Count Basie Performing Arts Academy, has credited the response and encouragement of her fellow King of Kings congregants as the impetus that led her to pursue a career in contemporary worship music — a journey that’s taken her from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Hawaii, Italy, the UK, Australia, South Africa (where she sang before a mega-congregation of more than 3000 people) and Jerusalem.
The autumn months find Scharff sticking close to home — rehearsing each component of the Christmas program separately as she draws a cohesive presentation together from many disparate sources. It’s a process that she repeats on a slightly smaller but no less detail-intensive scale every July, with her annual Patriotic Concert at her Middletown homebase.
With tenors Tony Buonarro, Thomas Bethman and James Gafgen as special guests, Friday’s program is scheduled to mix such traditional carols as “O Holy Night” and “Joy to the World” with Scharff originals and other contemporary compositions.
As has been the case for the past several years, proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the greater Red Bank area chapter of Love INC. (Love In the Name of Christ), a nationwide organization that helps the homeless and impoverished achieve stability and self-reliance. The show will also benefit local food banks, with attendees encouraged to bring in non-perishable food items. Tickets for the 7:30pm show are priced from $15 to $25, and can be reserved right here.
