This is a Holiday Concert by Craig Richey performing his original holiday songs to Benefit Project Angel Food’s Annual Toy Drive collecting toys for children affected by HIV. We would like to ask everybody to bring an unwrapped toy or gift for a child 0-18 yrs old.
Craig has performed as a virtuoso Classical Pianist at Hoson, but this time he will share his other big talent as a composer. He has composed the scores for numerous films such as Friends with Money, Wonderful World, Lovely and Amazing, and coming up Uncanny.
"With a dash of humor and a heaping dose of humanity, Craig Richey cuts through this seasonal madness and delivers a truly unexpected gift – the tangible sense of being loved.” Darren Frei, IN Magazine Los Angeles
In January 1997, I was walking down the street in NYC and saw a little Christmas Tree lying in the gutter. It was covered with dirty, exhaust-ridden snow. My heart ached for it somehow. It looked like it had been cut down, used, and tossed aside without gratitude. Instantly a lyric and melody popped into my head, as if planted there by the sad little tree. And so began a stream of Christmas songs that I have continued to write over the years. By the following Christmas, I had enough songs to plan a gig, and decided that in fitting with the spirit of the Holiday, and since it was really an ancient celebration of birth and the return of light, that we ought to do it to benefit women and children. The first two years we collected toys and donated them to the Women’s Prison Association, a shelter in the East Village that helped formerly incarcerated women reunite with their children. In the years that followed I began donating them to charities that helped children affected by HIV. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2000, we have chosen to donate the toys we collect to Project Angelfood’s Annual Toy Drive. Our LA home has become Molly Malone’s on Fairfax Ave. I love the space because it reminds me of the trough bars in NY where I used to play, and the room sounds wonderful. It always promises to be an evening full of kindred spirits, warmth, humor, and thought provocation! An ‘outsider’s’ look at Christmas, it is not at all what you expect a Christmas gig to be.
It is my belief that all children, upon entering this world, should be attended by an awe inspiring star, angels, shepherds, wise men, and kings, to celebrate the arrival of this new being: one who promises to be our hope, our future, the one we pray has come to save us. The music aims to focus on the universal aspects of the Christmas story, to connect it to it’s earliest incarnations, from early Egypt to the Pagans, and to recognize it’s true reason for being: the winter solstice. It is a celebration of the return of light as the days begin to grow longer.....the rebirth of the ‘sun’ of God! People of all faiths or none can feel truly at home and enjoy the spirit of giving as we make a difference in children’s lives.
Peace,
Craig