‘A Star in the East,’ singalong herald big things ahead

When your concert stage is shared by several dozen eager voices and one whispery wood-and-string instrument, the sonic situation gets complex.

“Let your hair down. Be wild. Share the awesome news you’re excited about!” music director Jana Hart instructed her Vancouver USA Singers during a recent rehearsal.

But, Hart also told special guest musician Carl Thor: “You sound beautiful. We don’t have hammered dulcimer every day. What do you need?”

The decibel outputs of a massive choir and a single, old-school instrument couldn’t be more different. That’s why Hart kept asking listeners scattered around the sanctuary at Vancouver’s First Presbyterian Church if the sound balance was OK. She eventually asked her choir to retain the infectious energy but pull down the volume; meanwhile the man at the P.A. cranked the soft, shimmery sound of Thor’s dulcimer to the max.

“It’s an enigmatic instrument,” Thor said. “You look at all these strings and wonder, how could anyone learn to play it?” But complexity is something Thor likes about it, he added: “It’s a musical puzzle. I like puzzles. I keep figuring things out about it.”

Thor grew up playing classical piano duets with his mother and marching at football games with a horn in his hands, he said — but then he set music aside and worked in information technology. Meanwhile he and his wife, Sarah, discovered folk dancing and folk music.

“Rock ‘n’ roll never drew my interest. I guess I’m an unconventional person. It doesn’t get much more obscure than the dulcimer,” Thor said, laughing. When Sarah took a fancy to the dulcimer, Thor gave her one as a gift — “and look who ended up playing it,” he said.

Thor was “deathly afraid of playing in front of people” at first, he said, but that didn’t last. After a few years, he quit his computer job and devoted himself to music. He said he’s one of just two hammered-dulcimer teachers in the Portland area; he also stays busy playing dances, concerts and other events on piano and mandolin as well as dulcimer.

Thor is “one of the best dulcimer players around,” Hart said. “And a lot of people have never heard a hammered dulcimer. When people hear the sound, they just love it.”

The first dulcimer piece Thor ever studied and performed, he said, is the one featured in this weekend’s concerts: the Appalachian-flavored “A Star in the East,” by dulcimer hero and composer Malcolm Dalglish.

Also featured will be a medley of jazzy carols by the Battle Ground High School Jazz Ensemble, directed by Darcy Schmitt. The girls of the choir will perform Vaughan Williams’ “Magnificat” and Respighi’s rarely heard “Laud to the Nativity,” with the part of Mary in both works sung by Kirsten Hart, Jana Hart’s daughter — and a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a member of the Boston Lyric Opera.

Hallelujah Vancouver!

When the audience becomes part of the grand finale — along with a superstar pipe organ, reportedly the grandest one in Clark County — the sonic dynamics are expected to go from slightly precarious to simply glorious. That’s an all-voices singalong on the beloved “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.”

The singalong also previews bigger things to come, later this month. The Vancouver USA Singers will host a huge “Messiah” singalong at 7 p.m. Dec. 21 in the same location, Vancouver’s First Presbyterian Church. It’ll be the whole “Messiah,” all parts of all choruses, not just that famous “Hallelujah” hit. The choir will have some scores to share, but if you’ve got one, please bring it. The event will be free, with goodwill offerings for Friends of the Carpenter, the day center and woodshop for homeless and vulnerable people.

For both singalongs, we’re told, “the mighty First Presbyterian pipe organ” will be cranked up to 11.