(bright music) - Well, you consider this, music can get into your bones and it got into this guy's bones a lot.

Shawn Degenhart is, well, you changed styles a long, long time ago.

- A little bit, yeah.

- But let's hear about you.

You're a Washingtonian or is that what they?

- Mm-hm, yep.

- What they call you guys from Washington.

Yeah, born and raised there.

- [Shawn] Mm-hm.

- And always interested in music.

- Yeah, we never had a piano growing up, but my grandparents did and I would sit at there and plunk out notes and try to figure out melodies and things.

- [Christine] So you didn't read music, you just?

- No, not at all.

- Okay.

- And about seventh grade, my grandma said, "I think you need to get him in piano lessons," so started piano lessons in seventh grade and just kind of exploded from there.

- Thank heavens for grandmas, right?

- Yeah, exactly.

- So did you go to her house for the piano lessons or what?

Did you get a piano in your home?

- We found an old piano, our church was getting rid of one that, you know, down in the basement and half the keys didn't work and all that kind of thing, so started taking lessons then.

- [Christine] All right, but then you figured out how to tune a piano too, right?

- Yep.

- Okay, good for you, good for you.

So then, when you were about nine years old, you heard some gospel music, or?

- It was actually a little later, it was actually in college.

- Oh okay.

- When I first, when I was in high school, I wanted to do Broadway.

- Oh, all right.

- I played for a lot of community theater shows, did a lot of music directing.

And then, when I was in college, this gospel music cruise tour, not a cruise, a tour came through called the Gaither Homecoming Tour, and Bill Gaither is a very popular gospel songwriter.

His name was in the hymnal I knew from growing up and I thought most people that are in the hymnal are dead.

So I wanted to see who this guy was and what he was doing.

- Somebody who was alive, yeah.

- Yeah.

So he had put together these gospel music pioneers from the '40s, '50s and '60s, kinda had a resurgence of their career, put them together, created these videos featuring old gospel songs, and then went on tour.

- All right.

- And so I got to hear them.

- [Christine] And that was here or where did you go?

- That was at Illinois State.

- Okay, all right.

- Yeah, when I was a junior at Illinois State.

- Yeah.

- Fell in love with gospel music and kind of redirected my career to want to be able to do that.

- So forget Broadway, I can gear it this way and then you have the almighty kind of directing you.

- Exactly, yep, exactly.

- That's awesome.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That's awesome.

So for the last how many years have you put on your Gospel time Christmas program?

- Well, the whole thing started in 1999.

I went to our music director at our church, I went to Grace Presbyterian and I said, "I want to do a Gaither homecoming style concert."

And he said, "They're never gonna go for that in the Midwest," 'cause he was from the South.

- [Christine] Okay.

- He was aware of gospel music.

So he said, "But I'll help you, we'll, you know, do whatever we can."

So we invited.

- And if we get 50 people in the audience, well, we can the first time.

- Exactly, and we had about 700.

- [Christine] Ah, the first year?

- Yeah.

- Really?

- So that was a summer concert.

And then, eventually, we went into full-time ministry in 2005 and that's when we added the Christmas concert to our repertoire.

- All right, so tell me about, so you have four concerts a year?

- Oh, we do four or five big events, yeah.

- All right.

And what are those?

So you have a spring?

- So we do our summer concert, that's kind of our big flagship event and then we do our Christmas concert.

Occasionally, we'll do a patriotic event and then we do a Music of Easter concert, just kind of preparing for Holy Week.

And then we do a Country GospelFest Concert in the fall with a live eight-piece country band.

And then, we do smaller events throughout the year.

- Okay, but the Christmas time one is?

- [Shawn] That's my favorite.

- All right.

- Yeah.

- And the reason is?

- I just love Christmas.

I could do Christmas year round.

- [Christine] You look ready for Christmas right now.

- Yeah, I spend about eight months a year working on various Christmas events, so really love doing that one.

- Right, and are these all at Grace Presb?

- No, most of them are at Five Points Washington.

- [Christine] Okay.

- We kind of change locations for some of them, you know, year after year, but Five Points is our home for Christmas.

- Yeah, all right, well, and that's how many days?

How many?

- Just one single, one night, yep.

- Just one performance.

- The Saturday after Thanksgiving.

- And it's a big deal.

- It is.

- I mean, you have a lot of stuff going on.

- Yeah.

- So tell me about that.

- So I want to create a concert environment where people feel like they're just sitting in my living room and we just kind of build a relationship and are able to share with them and encourage them and point them to the real reason for Christmas.

So we have all sorts of different sets, we've done a country theme, we've done a Christmas tree farm theme with a 1938 red Chevy truck.

- Right.

- We do a glitzy glamorous concert where we're in tuxes and ball gowns, and we've done a 1940s radio show where we've had Lee Ranson come in as our old time radio announcer.

- And he's a real deal.

- He did a great job.

- Yeah.

- And we had a live band and, you know, funny sponsors and commercials and skits and things like that, so we do it different every year.

- So do you write these?

I mean, this is all your idea or do you have a committee?

- Yes, I write the show.

- All right.

- I have a variety of sources that I pick music from and always looking for new things and we've got some old traditional favorites that we do.

- All right, and then is there audience participation?

- Oh yes, we invite them to sing along.

And probably my favorite moment in all of the concert is when we just sing "Silent Night," acapella, four-part harmony, you know, the halls filled with the voices, so it's beautiful.

- I'm getting chills just thinking about that too 'cause it really is.

- It is - I mean, it's Christmas, that is definitely Christmas.

- Yeah.

- And who are your performers?

Do you have a regular troupe or do you?

- Yeah, we change out occasionally, but I've got about nine or 10 singers, most of them are from the area and they're people that I've worked with for 20 years.

My best friend is our ministry vice president.

He sings with us, he's the choir director at Tremont High School.

My wife joins us, we have a bass singer from St.

Louis.

- [Christine] Ah.

- That I met at a gospel music school in Nashville, and he comes up every year, he's singing with some nationally known groups now, but always makes time for our events.

- 'Cause it means something to him.

- [Shawn] It does, yeah.

- Not that the others don't.

- [Shawn] Right, yeah.

- But he's got that little kind of an emotional connection with you.

- [Shawn] Yeah, we're all family.

- That's awesome, that's awesome.

So you work on that, how do you have time, with a big production like that, how do you have time to do all of your other little festivals?

- Yeah, that's what I'm asking myself every morning.

- Okay.

- How do I have time?

But, yeah, we start working on Christmas probably in June, just trying to come up with a theme and figure out the direction we wanna go.

And then, that's when new music starts coming out from various publishers and a lot of listening and figuring out who my soloists are and what they could sing and how all the pieces fit together.

- Yeah, and so, what was your major in college?

- Music history and theory composition.

- Interesting.

Thank heavens for your grandma again, yeah.

- Yeah, exactly.

- So when you come up with your ideas, I mean, this year, it's like a snow globe, right?

- Yeah, kind of a more glamorous, glitzy, fancy kind of event.

- All right, and then, so there's new gospel music for Christmas now, or?

- [Shawn] There's new music coming out all the time.

- All the time, really?

- Different groups, you know, various recordings and always looking for new arrangements and especially choral things.

- Do you do any of that?

Any of that arranging?

- I do, yeah.

We've written three or four songs that have kind of become favorites for the audience through the years.

- [Christine] Okay, such as?

- A friend of mine and I co-wrote a song called "The Tiny Little Baby," and it's a toe tapping, you know, alto lead with a fun bassline, kind of southern gospel song.

Another one is called "An Old Fashioned Christmas" that I wrote.

And I needed a song that said something about memories and nostalgia and things, so I couldn't find one, so I just wrote one.

- [Christine] All right, well, give me some of the lyrics from that one.

- It talks about getting in our old station wagon and going to the farm to visit grandma and grandpa, and grandpa carving the turkey and grandma greeting us with a twinkle in her eye, and you know, the house smelling like cookies and pumpkin pie.

- Absolutely.

- And just the longing for an old fashioned Christmas.

- Yeah, yeah, and that's a rare thing a lot of times anymore.

Yeah 'cause everybody's elsewhere.

- [Shawn] Right.

- So lucky to have people together.

Well, that's fun.

And what are your biggest challenges then in trying to pull all these little strings and get 'em all together?

- Yeah I'm kind of a one man band, so I'm doing the publicity, I'm figuring out the set and how we're gonna build that and design that and picking the music and coordinating rehearsals.

And so, it's a lot, but I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

- And your wife is a music teacher and she's okay with all this that you're doing?

- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, she enjoys it too.

- Good for you.

And what do you like most about it, just because you see it come to life or?

- I like the planning and the programming of the events, figuring out how these pieces work together to get the biggest impact for the audience and how to just arrange things so that it's most impactful for them.

- But you just enjoy it all the time, I mean, there's never a time.

- Oh no, never.

- Where you say, "I just can't do this anymore."

- [Shawn] No, no, can't imagine not doing it.

(both laughing) - Okay, well, so let's talk about, well, the Christmas one is coming up in the end of November, November 29th.

- Yep.

- At Five Points.

- Mm-hm, seven o'clock and it's free.

We have ministry underwriters, GospelFest Ministries is its own 501c3 nonprofit.

So we have ministry supporters and partners that help underwrite all of our expenses for the venue rental and equipment and music and sets and all that, so we can make it free for the community, - Which is a nice Christmas gift.

- Yeah, we don't want anything to stand in the way of people being able to attend and bring their families.

- [Christine] And it is a family event.

- Yes, mm-hm.

- So everybody, all ages love it.

- Yeah.

And this year, we have the Rising Stars Group from Niche Theater Arts, they're gonna be joining us on a couple songs.

So we're adding that kid element to the show this year, it'll be a lot of fun.

- Oh good, good.

Well, you'll have kids dancing in the aisles then too.

- Oh yeah, I hope so.

- Yeah, that's good.

Let me think about, have you sold out?

Do you ever have standing room only or, I mean, how many people can be seated at Five Points?

- Five Points seats about 1,100 I think, and we usually run around 900 or so people, so it's a good, good size crowd.

- Yeah, which is also fun.

And they come from not only Washington, but all over.

- All over, yeah.

We've got people coming from, you know, hour and a half, two hours away that said it's their favorite part of Christmas or, you know, a great way to start their Christmas season.

- Yeah, that's good and that's right after Thanksgiving.

- [Shawn] Yeah.

- Is it generally the Saturday after Thanksgiving?

- Yeah, it's always the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

- All right.

- I do a couple other events throughout the Christmas season, so that's the one weekend that we can rely on.

- Okay, what are those other events that you do?

- I'm part of the music staff at Grace Presbyterian Church.

So I direct the Grace Family Christmas, which is another big choir and orchestra production.

- I have been there for that, yeah, yeah.

- So, yeah, that's the other big event, which is the week after our concert, so.

- All right.

- Busy time.

- Fun, yeah, definitely.

So when do you have time to rest during the holidays, or do you?

- We don't.

- Okay.

- That's why I like to do my events early, so get 'em out of the way and, you know, start off the season and then have a couple weeks to enjoy with family.

- Well, good for you.

And you're the proud father of four daughters.

- Four daughters, starting to feel like Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof."

(both laughing) - [Christine] But it's a tradition.

- It is, yeah.

- Yeah, exactly.

So, all right, when did you establish your GospelFest as a 501c3?

- In 2009.

- And how did that come about?

Because you had already been doing some things and you figured, "Okay, we need to make this."

- Yeah, I was on staff at Grace through 2004 and just kind of felt the Lord leading us to more music focus.

And so, we joined another ministry called Hands of Love, and Scott and Rachel Kramer, they used to do concerts on the Spirit of Peoria and they're now touring nationally with their family.

So we joined them and kind of started GospelFest Ministries then.

And then, in 2009, all of our events were just kind of becoming quite a lot to deal with, so that's when we split from Hands of Love Ministry and created GospelFest as its own entity.

- All right, so you found out a lot about doing that kind of thing too.

- Yeah, yeah.

Lots of paper work.

- Yeah, how difficult was that to make that transition?

- Not too bad.

I knew a company down in Nashville that they exist to help equip nonprofit ministries.

So that's their whole point is just to take away the paperwork burden and, you know, worrying about all the taxes and everything so they take care of that for us.

- All right.

So here you are, a mid-westerner from north of the Mason-Dixon line, and you're really into this gospel music.

And so, the people that you've met through your ministry, they're pretty proud of you for making that transition for, you know, not being too Midwestern, but kind of bringing some soul in too?

- Exactly, I'm a southerner at heart is what they tell me.

- [Christine] Okay, well, that's kind of a fun designation.

- Yeah, yeah, it is.

- And how do they help you or mentor you or help, you know, work with you and really feeling the soul of this gospel music?

- Yeah, we've got on our ministry board about nine people.

Some of them are dear, dear friends from the South that are doing this professionally and have been doing it, you know, all of their lives.

- [Christine] And that you just met along the way?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- And they're great resources for me, as far as, you know, running a ministry and keeping the main thing the main thing and going to them for advice or how would you solve this problem?

Or how would you program a concert given this scenario and this type of situation?

And so, it's a wonderful team we have assembled.

- Well, so this is your ministry, this is your job, and you're doing these performances and things.

What is your everyday like?

- They're different, every day is different.

I started, I just actually left Grace Presbyterian, I was their communications director, so I was doing kind two full-time jobs.

- [Christine] Great.

- And then, it was earlier this year that I really felt like the Lord was leading us to just focus on the music.

I turned 50 this year and I thought, "Okay, what do I wanna be doing in 20 years?

We've been doing this for 20, what do the next 20 look like?"

- [Christine] All right.

- So we decided to leave that position, take a step of faith to just focus solely on the ministry, so that change happened in August.

Also picked up a couple classes at Bradley that I'm teaching just part-time.

So, yeah, everything keeps me really busy.

- So music classes, music construction, singing, or?

- Teaching the freshman level ear training and sight singing is kind of one of the basic first classes that music majors take, teaching a group piano class.

And then, I'm teaching the advanced orchestration class that my oldest daughter is in, so that's a lot of fun.

- Okay.

Wow, yeah, yeah.

Well, you need to just take a breath right now, you're sitting down and you can take a breath right this minute.

- Ah, okay.

- Good for you, good for you.

What do you look forward to most then in these next 20 years?

Your youngest will be 29.

- [Shawn] Right.

- And do you think your family will want to take over, you think the girls would be interested in leading this ministry?

- I don't know if they will or not, we're working on that.

We're kind of letting them do their own thing, but they're all very talented musicians and our oldest, you know, wants to have a career as a film composer.

So definitely kind of following that track, but whether she'd wanna continue that, we'll see.

- Well, yeah, and there's a class at Bradley now for, isn't there, for film composing?

- Yes, mm-hm, yeah.

- Yeah.

Yeah, so tell me about that.

Do you have anything to do with that or just through her exposure?

- A little bit, I'm a big fan of film music and I've been able to do some work for the Disney Company and I've made some connections out there.

So it's a real fun way to, you know, connect with my daughter who wants to do that and introduce her to people that I've been able to meet and encourage her on that journey.

- Okay, tell me about this Disney exposure.

You met the composers for "Mary Poppins."

- Yeah, the Sherman Brothers.

- The Sherman Brothers, yeah.

- Yeah.

So we took our first family trip to Disney in 2012, I hadn't been since high school.

And it was another one of those eye-opening experiences.

I love the way Disney does things.

- Disney magic.

- Their customer service, their detail, and have been able to incorporate that into some of our events.

- Okay.

- In hospitality and customer service and, you know, creating these magical environments.

So through that, I've met people that work at the Disney Company and have been able to meet the Sherman Brothers and work on a couple projects that they've written.

The Sherman brothers wrote "Mary Poppins" and "Winnie the Pooh," and "It's a Small World" and "Jungle Book" and all those great classic scores.

- Absolutely, yes.

- So it was a pleasure and an honor to meet them.

Robert had passed away, but I met Richard back in 2017 and since then, I've published a study score from the film "Cinderella."

- Yeah, tell me about that too, yeah.

What, a study score?

- Yeah.

- Did they write that as well?

- [Shawn] Well, kind of.

- Okay.

- So a study score would be something prepared where you can see every instrument of the orchestra, what it's doing, how they wrote it, you know, just how the whole music score was put together.

And Disney had never released anything like that before.

I kind of pitched the idea to some people I knew, and it was a couple year process, but they finally agreed to let me do this.

So I took their manuscript handwritten, notes scratched out, you know.

- From "Cinderella," what year was it?

- [Shawn] 1950.

- Okay, all right.

- And took that and then put it all into the computer to create a professionally engraved, you know, like you'd buy sheet music in the store.

It's about 400 pages.

- Oh my.

- So it was a lot, you know, entering note by note.

- I guess.

- I've had some people like Don Hahn who was the producer for "Beauty and the Beast," he's become a friend and he wrote a foreword for the book, a Disney historian wrote a couple essays for it.

So it's kind of a complete package deal for "Cinderella," and I'm working on a couple other projects now as well.

- So the "Cinderella" package, I mean, is it available?

- Yeah.

- It's in a book form.

So where do you get that?

- On our website, which is degenhartmusic.com.

- [Christine] Okay.

- So it's kind of designed for fans of film scores and composition and all that.

- So you would put that in your search bar, like Disney Cinderella composition or just go to Degenhart?

- Degenhartmusic.com, yeah.

- It's just so much easier.

- Yeah.

- Wow, what a fascinating opportunity.

- Yeah, it's just a great privilege and just getting to meet those people.

Richard Sherman passed away a year ago, I believe it was, and I was able to go out for their memorial service that they had in LA and actually arranged and orchestrated about five songs that they did there.

- For the memorial service?

- For the service.

And that featured people like Jodi Benson and Hayley Mills, and it's just, you know, being able to see them and meet them is an honor.

- Right.

These are some of your idols growing up.

- Yeah, mm-hm.

- Wow, did you ever imagine that this kind of stuff would be happening to this little old guy from Washington, Illinois?

- Not at all, not at all.

- [Christine] Really?

What fun, what fun.

- Yeah.

- So what's your next adventure when it comes to, you know, opportunities like that?

Or you're letting the Lord.

- I've learned always say yes as the opportunities present themselves and just kind of follow the Lord's leading.

- And how difficult is that?

I mean, how often do you question yourself?

- Every day.

- Okay.

- There's always questioning - [Christine] That's safe.

- Yeah, but the Lord has been faithful to provide for us, you know, we're a support-based ministry, so we rely on, you know, ministry donors to help keep making these things happen.

But he's never proven himself unfaithful.

- How about it?

And so your supporters and they also have the opportunity to make suggestions to you on kind of what to do program wise?

- Yeah, we have a huge team of supporters and it's always great hearing from them on how much they enjoy events or things that they'd like to see, you know, and, "Have you ever thought about doing this type of concert?"

And those are always, always welcome those suggestions.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you've never doubted yourself or have you doubted yourself because you know- - Never doubted what I'm doing, there's been times where I've like, "Should I have made that decision or should I have gone this way?"

Or, you know, there's always that, but just trust and obey and keep walking.

- All right, so the instruments that you play now, so piano, obviously, - Piano, and that's it?

- A little organ, but piano's the main thing.

- Okay, keyboard kind of thing, all right.

And where do you wanna go from here then?

We're really excited about the future of the ministry, I've got a bunch of recording projects that we'd love to tackle.

- [Christine] Tell me about those.

Such as?

- Yeah, the Stamps-Baxter Music Company was a gospel music publisher, started back in 1925.

- All right, 100 years.

- So this is the 100th anniversary.

- Right.

- I've published a couple song books of kind of their best of through the years, and I'm working on a potential podcast with a couple friends of mine, talking about the history of the company and how it helped shape gospel music.

We do a program called "An Evening with Fanny Crosby," Fanny Crosby was a hymn writer that wrote "Blessed Assurance" and a lot of, she wrote 8,000 hymns.

- Oh gosh.

- And we kind of do a program where we tell her life story and weaving some of her best known hymns throughout, working on a recording for that, for the GospelFest singers, other songbooks, and, you know, anything, we're open to whatever.

- Yeah, and you just keep going.

- [Shawn] And just keep going.

- It's just incredible.

And these new ideas are popping into your head all the time.

- Yeah, usually in the shower, that's when the best ideas happen.

- And do you sing too then?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

Well, that's good, that's good to do.

Gotta make sure that you're heard in that way.

- Exactly.

- Good for you.

Well, I don't know, I don't know what to say, you're exhausting me right now, I can say that.

And then, this publishing, what fun is that?

- [Shawn] Yeah.

- And you never imagined that you would do anything like that?

- No, it had been a pipe dream and it was mostly for me that I wanted to be able to look at these scores and study them and how they were written and, you know, how the arrangers did different things, - [Christine] Especially 100 years ago.

- Right.

- Right.

- So it's been great being able to study all that and then to be able to share it with other people is just an added bonus.

- I bet.

Well, I wonder who's gonna come up with the next idea?

- [Shawn] I don't know.

- No, no.

- We'll see.

- And so your favorite blessing, through all of this, what is it?

- Probably my kids.

- Okay, I like that.

- Yeah.

- Have to go with the kids.

- And that they're all musically inclined and your wife is too?

- Yeah.

- And where did you meet her?

- We were grad students at Illinois State and she was a vocal music ed major and she was looking for an accompanist and I think she just wanted to not have to pay me as her accompanist so she just kind of got a little sweet on me.

- [Christine] Yep, and that turned out for you.

- And that worked, yeah.

Almost 20, it'll be 24 years in December.

- Oh, good for you, that's really fun.

Okay, well, I appreciate you being here.

- [Shawn] Thank you, Chris.

- And tell me a little bit more then, where will people find out more about the Christmastime GospelFest?

- Yeah, they can go to gospelfestministries.com and the concert is Saturday, November 29th at seven o'clock at Five Points Washington, free, take a love offering, and y'all come.

- I think that's a great idea.

Well, thanks so much, Shawn.

- Thank you, Chris.

- I am glad that you shared that story and we'll have to listen to you with your talents.

I've probably heard 'em somewhere along the way.

- You may have somewhere.

- Yeah, yeah, I think, but maybe I'll get a front row seat this time.

- That'd be great.

- Okay, thanks so much.

- Thanks.

- Thank you for being with us as well, and until next time, be well.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)