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STORY BY KATE DALY PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK Get ready for a big entourage arriving soon to accompany the Sun Valley Carolers for the group’s 42nd season strolling around the village in Dickens-style costumes, singing traditional holiday songs and ringing Old English handbells. Director Derek Furch of Kaysville, Utah, expects as many as 50 people to show up this year to back up the six male and six female performers who are scheduled to roam around from 5:30 to 9:30 every night starting Saturday, Dec. 21, and running through Friday, Dec. 27.
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The carolers are quick to whip out their bells during their performances.
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“The group that performs, they are so dedicated to Sun Valley. Bringing their spouses and children, it’s a wonderful Christmas getaway for them, a win/win” working vacation, he says. Sun Valley Resort provides lodging at the Sun Valley Inn and nearby condos, food, ski passes, and reimbursement for travel. This year’s returning group is coming from Utah; Star Valley, Wy.; Boise, Nashville and Hollywood. “My children have never known a Christmas away from Sun Valley,” said Furch, who has been working with the group since 1982. Now that his daughter is one of the performers, the holiday season has become a multi-generational experience for his family.
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Sun Valley Carolers perform outside the Boiler Room in Sun Valley Village.
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“It’s a fun gig!” he exclaims. The group’s origin story dates back to the late 1970s when the carolers were all students at Utah State University in Logan. They traveled around the Northwest visiting hospitals and veterans’ centers. Someone reached out to Sun Valley Resort to see if there would be any interest in putting them up for a few nights, and a Christmas tradition was born. When the university shut down the carolers’ part of the music program in 2002, Furch kept the Sun Valley connection and group going. And he sees the arrangement continuing on into “the foreseeable future.” “A lot of them met at Utah State and married. They’re all close friends, they’ve been together so long,” he says.
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The carolers include Sun Valley’s own John Mauldin and Melody-Taylor Mauldin, right.
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There is one couple among the dozen performers, he adds. Furch has arranged about 30 different numbers for them. He’s prepared a new one this season called “Prince of Peace.” The group rehearses online through Zoom before meeting up in Sun Valley for a one night in-person practice. And then the performers are off and cavorting until nightfall when they don their festive top hats and red and white capes and cruise around Sun Valley Village, stopping near the Boiler Room, outside the Inn by the fireplace, and in front of the Village Station. Sometimes they will break into song in a lobby or restaurant, such as the Trail Creek Cabin while they warm up for a spell and interact with their audiences. At 5:30pm on Christmas Eve expect them to begin and then end the annual ice show by singing some Christmas favorites in a sleigh at Sun Valley Lodge’s ice rink.
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The Sun Valley Carolers had a different look 12 years ago.
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Furch describes Sun Valley as “kind of magical,” for being a somewhat isolated mountain town where the group can offer a moment people can sit and enjoy music in a quaint village setting. He likes the fact that the parking lots are designed to keep cars separate from the action. He loves being part of the Christmas tradition and somewhat misses the old Broadway-style floor show he used to direct on New Year’s Eve in Sun Valley when Utah State University carolers and dancers performed with a big band à la Glenn Miller in the early 1980s on into the mid-1990s. Greg Wheeler, Associate Professor of Music Education at Utah State University, notes that the big band is still together in the Cache Valley of northern Utah. He wistfully adds: “We have great memories of the shows and coming to Sun Valley.”
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