The opening notes of O Holy Night might conjure visions of a soaring cathedral like Notre Dame, but on December 14, the season’s most cherished Christmas classics will resonate in setting more akin to the Jim Henson’s 1980s puppet program Fraggle Rock. Among the stalagmites and stalactites of Virginia’s Luray Caverns, the largest cave system of its kind in the eastern United States, holiday melodies will ring out at the Shriners Caroling in the Caverns event.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” says Dennis Fleming, a member of the Shriners of the Cavern and the event’s organizer. “I’m not a musician myself and I don’t sing much, but the way the sound carries and the reverberations through the walls of the cavern, it’s just incredibly unique.”
For anyone who has spelunked into the 230-foot-deep cavity that sits just west of Luray, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, you know it’s an acoustic wonderland. Leland Sprinkle, a Pentagon mathematician, harnessed Luray Caverns’ sonic magic in 1956 when he built the Great Stalacpipe Organ. The 3.5-acre calliope is considered the largest underground musical instrument in the world and works by making sounds as hammers gently strike the icicle-like stalactites hanging from the cavern’s vast “Cathedral room” ceiling.
But that won’t be the sound you hear on December 14. The organ, a touchy and complex apparatus, will sit silent as eight choral and musical groups perform and visitors enjoy a self-guided tour of the caves. Valley Chorale, the Shenandoah Valley’s long-established chorus, will be on hand, as will Page Valley Singers and a team of bell ringers. But the highlight for many, Fleming says, is the children’s chorus from Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church: “They’re just wonderful.”
These young singers serve as a poignant reminder of the event’s deeper purpose. Caroling in the Caverns was started five years ago to raise money for the Shriners Children’s Hospital in Greenville, South Carolina, which specializes in pediatric prosthetics. “We have kids right here in the valley who are served there,” Fleming says. Last year, four hundred guests attended the one-night-only event, allowing Shriners to raise $12,000 for the hospital. Fleming would love to see that figure topped this December.
The American Masonic Society opened its first Shriners hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1922, and now there are twenty-two such facilities around the country. “And they treat everything, from burn victims to prosthetic needs,” Fleming says. “The Shriners cover every penny, including transportation and meals for the child, until they’re eighteen.”
That kind of commitment can change lives, and he has seen its impact firsthand. “Last year,” Fleming recalls, “a woman who attended told us she’d been a patient at a Shriners hospital in the 1950s and came to support the cause for today’s children.”
Pretty remarkable what a community can achieve when it comes together in harmony.
Caroling in the Caverns takes place at Luray Caverns on Saturday, December 14, from 6:00–8:00pm. Tickets are $20 per person, and all proceeds benefit Shriners Hospital for Children.
