Oh, starry nights: fraternity hosts annual charity concert
After raising more than $8,000 sales for orphans with Down syndrome through sold-out ticket sales, Alpha Tau Omega will host the third annual Starry Night Christmas concert Friday and Saturday.
“It’ll be the highlight of your Christmas, perhaps second to Christmas morning itself,” said Tiernan Thorley, a freshman majoring in geology, about the concert this weekend.
As the production’s stage manager and member of ATO, Thorley played a key role in coordinating the fraternity’s anticipated musical event of which all proceeds go to Racing for Orphans with Down Syndrome (RODS).
“One of the brothers in ATO knows Brady Murray, the man who started the (RODS) organization,” Thorley said.
RODS is an organization that helps find families for children with Down syndrome who have been abandoned.
“Every Greek organization has a philanthropic focus or specific charity that they usually donate to if they have the chance,” Thorley said. “It is cool for us to have the opportunity to help such a great cause, but it makes it a little extra special when you personally know one of the beneficiaries.”
The RODS Racing Team has participated in hundreds of races throughout the world, “whether it’s a 5K, marathon, sprint triathlon or full Ironman distance, we race for the cause of helping these children find a home,” according to RodsRacing.org.
Through these races and donations from supporters such as ATO, the organization raised tens of thousands of dollars for orphans with Down syndrome this year alone.
“Last year was the first time we worked with our charity organization,” said Anna Thorley, a senior studying broadcast journalism who is in charge of the music for the program. “Now that they have been involved and have seen our show and we’ve been able to give a hefty donation to them last year, they are so, so excited to be a part of the show.”
In years past, the event lasted a single night. Because of the concert’s popularity, this year’s event was extended to two nights.
“We had a really positive response in years past, so we decided to expand to two nights,” said Mark Allred, a freshman member of ATO majoring in finance and marketing. “Along those lines, we upgraded the venue to the Caine Performance Hall, which we think is the best location for this event.” Allred is the director of finance and marketing for Starry Night.
At last year’s Starry Night performance, ATO raised a little over $2,400, but this year the fraternity members had a larger goal in mind.
“At first we thought we would double that because we were doing two nights instead of one, so we thought $5,000,” Tiernan said. “At one of the meetings we had with Brady Murray and the RODS organization, he told us that we had something bigger and better than we realized. He suggested we raise our sights, and now our goal donation is $15,000.”
There will also be some new features added to the concert this year.
“Our efforts have doubled this year,” Anna said. “We decided to do the show for two nights instead of just one, and we are hoping to sell out this year. Because we’ve set our expectations so high with hopes to fill both nights, we have put together a killer program to do it justice.”
Tickets to both nights of the concert sold out Tuesday.
Musical performances this year will feature students studying music at Utah State University as well as some professional musicians from around the state.
“One of my favorite parts about the concert is how many different types of music will be represented,” Tiernan said. “There are some jazzy numbers, a blues number, a banjo-fiddle duet, some classical-sounding stuff as well as contemporary.”
Program organizers selected a variety of musical acts in order to satisfy a mixture of genres.
“When we were setting up the program, we were very picky with who we would allow to participate,” Tiernan said, “not only because we wanted the quality of the music to be exceptional but also because we wanted to keep it diverse and interesting.”
The concert is family friendly but excludes admission of children under the age of eight, as it’s a semi-formal event.
“The performance is about two hours long with a 10-minute intermission,” Tiernan said. “It moves really fast and changes in dynamics from song to song, so we’ll keep even non-musical personalities interested and wanting more when it is over.”
The concert will be held at the USU Caine Performance Hall. The performances begin at 7 p.m. will run on Dec. 5 and 6.
“With a smaller, intimate setting and excellent acoustics, the lineup of musicians will sound even better, and the whole experience will be spectacular,” Allred said.
— alyssa.hawkins@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @_alyssahawkins