Bring a donation to Toy-ful Celebration! concert Dec. 18

Bring your family to the 28th annual Toy-ful Celebration! concert at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, at Glenview Community Church, 1000 Elm, Glenview.

Join the Toy Choir, with featured soloist Tricia Melzer-Swaydrak and directed by Guillermo Muñoz Küster; the Joyful Ringers bell choir, directed by Gary Wendt; and the Glenview Community Church Children's Choir, directed by Lydia Lane Stout, for a festive evening of holiday music and fun.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., Christmas carol singalong starts at 6:45 p.m. Masks are required.

The Toy-ful Celebration! concert benefits the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots program. The concert is free; bring an unwrapped, new toy (or toys) to donate to the Marines to help make a child's Christmas morning a little brighter.

If you cannot come to the concert, consider dropping off new toys at any of the Glenview Fire Department's Toys for Tots boxes.

Tricia Melzer-Swaydrak began the Toy-ful Celebration! concert at the Glenview Community Church in 1993. She reached out to Marine Air Control Group 48, which was located at the Naval Air Base in Glenview at that time.

The Marines have come to appear at the concert every year since then, even though they moved to Highwood in 1995, and five years later moved to their current location at the Great Lakes Naval Station.

"I began it in my father's honor. He was a Marine at Glenview Naval Air Station in the 1950s," Melzer-Swaydrak said. "He became a fireman in Glenview and collected toys for Toys for Tots for many years when I was young."

Melzer-Swaydrak is a Chicago area soloist. She has been a featured soloist of the International Music Festival, performing in more than 16 European countries. She has been a member and soloist of the Chicago Master Singers since 1995.

Until recently, she was the personnel manager for the Lake Forest Symphony.

Gary Wendt is the minister for music and organist at Glenview Community Church, and has served the church in various musical capacities since 2005. He grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and received his bachelor's degree in music education from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He did his graduate work at DePaul University of Chicago.

Wendt directs the Joyful Ringers Handbell Choir and the Pilgrim Wind Ensemble at Glenview Community Church. He continues to develop, administrate and program the church's Simple Gifts Concert Series, which each year offers a dozen performances by congregants raising funds for local charities and regional and nationally known artists and ensembles.

Wendt teaches elementary music in Hubbard Woods.

A native of Santiago, Chile, Guillermo Muñoz Küster earned his Bachelor of Music degree magna cum laude in classical guitar and voice from Lebanon Valley College (Annville, Pennsylvania) and a Master of Music degree in conducting and classical guitar from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where he studied with conductors Robert Harris and Stephen Alltop and classical guitarist Anne Waller.

He joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association's administrative staff in 2015, and he currently serves as an associate artist coordinator and the executive assistant to the vice president of artistic planning.

This is his sixth year as director of the Glenview Community Church Chancel Choir. Muñoz Küster also conducts the Heritage Chorale of Oak Park.

Lydia Lane Stout received her bachelor's degree in music from Oberlin College in 2012 and her Master of Music in choral conducting from Michigan State University in 2018. Glenview Community Church welcomed her to the music staff in September 2018, where she serves as director of children's music and worship associate, directing the children's choirs. In 2014, she and 18 local professional singers founded the group Common Pulse, for which Stout serves as director.

The village of Glenview collects toys at its five fire stations. Along with the toys collected at the concert, the Glenview toy collection has grown into more than 2,000 toys annually.

Glenview Community Church is handicap accessible and has free, on-site parking. It is three blocks west of the Glenview Metra North train station.

For information, visit www.gccucc.org, email simplegifts@gccucc.org, or call (847) 724-2210.