Proceeds from your purchase of A Skyway Community Christmas go toward the Skyway Fund and Festival
to benefit the Hamilton Central School Music Department. The Skyway Festival, now in its third year, has grown into
an almost ten hour day of music and community.
The album is a collaborative effort of area musicians in honor of Craig Getchonis with proceeds to benefit
the Skyway Festival and Fund. Skyway Festival organizers and Orbital Sound Records produced A Skyway Community Christmas
to be exchanged for donation to help defray the annual music festival's operating costs. Skyway organizers asked area musicians
to record and pledge their versions of Christmas songs and original seasonal compositions to be compiled into a various artist
sampler fundraising CD.
Artists appearing on A Skyway Community Christmas include Skyway co-founder Pamme Swan whose Patchouli
Room CD was a Top Ten Pick for 2006 in the Syracuse Post Standard by Music Critic Mark Bialczak; Skyway 2007 past performer
Edwin Vollmer of whom "Mr. Guitar", Chet Atkins wrote Vollmer has "a lot of good musical qualities such as tone, intonation,
and touch."; Skyway 2008 performer Robin Schade, The New York State Troubadour; Dianne Adams and James McDowell best known
by Central New Yorkers for their award-winning musical, The Wind in the Willows, which opened at Syracuse Stage and
was moved to the New Victory Theatre in NYC; Hamilton Central School Vocal Music Teacher Susan Schoonmaker with cellist Chris
Shenkel and also with Charlisa Todd, Emily Powrie and Dana Bowers; Skyway 2007 past performer Maren Vantine with Nancy Holden;
Hamilton cellist and songwriter Daryl Wilson; and Syracuse singer-songwriter Rebecca Keefe Fitzsimmons whose song Invitation
to a Dance was the Lincoln Center concert opener for international artist Emily Saxe. The song appears on Saxe's debut
CD "Keeping You in Mind".
The memory of Hamilton musician Craig Getchonis continues to inspire his friends in the Village of Hamilton,
New York as they promote A Skyway Community Christmas in his honor, raising funds to help give area students the
chance to try out musical instruments for themselves.
