Mall singers spread reason for season to shoppers

By KALEA HALL

khall@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Music At The Mall

Video

Visitors to the Southern Park Mall were in for a musical treat.

The crowd sang along and clapped as Nancy Cuffle walked on stage singing “Go Tell It on the Mountain” with her hands in the air clapping.

It was a moment of collaborative embrace between the crowd and the performers.

The performers, friends and friends of friends, came out for the third time in recent years to Southern Park Mall to spread “the real reason for the season.”

A group of about 13 performers performed solo, in duets and quartets on a stage near the center of the mall Tuesday evening surrounded by shoppers in search of last-minute gifts before next week’s Christmas festivities.

The performance was the first of two for the night. The performers headed to Eastwood Mall in Niles for the second performance.

Cuffle, the organizer, is on the praise team at Poland United Methodist Church on U.S. Route 224, and she wanted to do an impromptu performance after she saw one on YouTube a few years ago.

“I thought, I’d love to do that, and the next year I did it,” she said.

“I just thought it was so cool that it was so impromptu.”

The performance has become a production with violin, trumpet and guitar players accompanying the singers at various stages of the performance. The Christmas carols sung were all about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

The trumpet player opened the show with “Joy to The World,” followed by a solo piece of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

Then a quartet of male singers boldly sang “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful.”

Debbie Melvin and Deb Dancker joined together on stage to sing “Silent Night.”

“We just like to help people get in the holiday spirit,” Dancker said. “We are bringing out the reason for the season.”

“We are hoping it elevates their mood,” Melvin said.

Next came a duet of “Away in the Manger” with the violin softly playing in the background.

Cuffle then livened up the performance with “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” and a male soloist followed with an uplifting version of “The Little Drummer Boy.”

The performance ended with a female soloist singing “O Holy Night” as Mary, holding the baby Jesus, and her husband, Joseph, walked on stage.