Power of the song proves can-do spirit

Steve Siemens believes music has power. Music, he says, inspires. It communicates both messages and emotions. It soothes. It energizes. And on at least one occasion in his life, music proved one of Steve’s favorite themes: If you don’t try, you’ll fail 100 percent of the time. But if you try. …

Steve has been singing all of his life. His wife, Barb, also sings. In fact, the entire Siemens family sings, and they enjoy singing together.

About 30 years ago, when Steve became a professor at Iowa Christian College in Des Moines, he and Barb began inviting youths from throughout the United States Midwest to audition for a summer singing group known as Harmony. (VIDEO: Click here to see video of Steve and his wife serenading the CKI Convention)

“They had to be in high school,” Steve says. “They would come, and we would rehearse over four days and then we would tour for 12 days. We did this for about 20 years.”

One year, Steve challenged the teenagers to perform Georg Fridric Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

“That year, we had twin sisters in the group whose dad was a music teacher in Illinois,” Steve remembers. “They called him and said, ‘We’re going to sing the Hallelujah Chorus.’

“He said, ‘There is no way ever you are going to put the Hallelujah Chorus together in just four days.’”

Nevertheless, Steve met with the group on a Sunday evening around a campfire and urged them to try.

“We are going to do something everybody says is impossible,” he told them. “But we’re going to make up our minds right now that we’re going to do it, and I want each one of you to commit to me that you are going to give it your best effort.”

Harmony’s tour rolled into an Illinois town near the twins’ hometown, and their father arrived for the show.

“His daughters had not said a word,” Steve says. “He didn’t see any mention of the Hallelujah Chorus in the program, because we purposely left it out. And he came up to me and said, ‘Well, I was right.’

“And I said, ‘You know, you are right.’ And that’s all I said.

“We got to the end of our program, and those kids started that chorus, and the tears were streaming down his face. ‘Purely phenomenal,’ he told me.”

Music triumphs again.

Meet 2005-06 Kiwanis International President Steve Siemens in the October 2005 issue of KIWANIS magazine.