Christ The King Music Director Celebrates 50 Years With Free Concert
CHICAGO — Since 1974, Edward Zelnis, 67, has been a mainstay as the music director at Christ the King Church in Beverly. Most parishioners can’t remember anyone else but Ed being there conducting the choir or playing the organ.
Zelnis’s life as a musician began as a child growing up at 73rd Street and Winchester Avenue in Murray Park, now part of Englewood. His family wasn’t particularly musical. They liked music but nobody played anything.
“Mother thought I showed an aptitude and she took me to the only music teacher within walking distance of our house,” Zelnis recalled. “She lied about my age because I was only five and he wouldn’t take anybody under seven.”
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The teacher, Howard Kelly, was a jazz trumpeter. Zelnis studied piano with Kelly until high school.
“He taught music theory and the nuts and bolts aside from teaching piano,” he said. “So I was conducting and arranging by high school.”
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His music teacher at Quigley South High School (now St. Rita), Cecil Gorey, became his next mentor. At that point, Zelnis was conducting and arranging all the musicals at Quigley South.
“Between my junior and senior year Gorey got the music director job at Christ the King,” Zelnis said. “He brought me along as an organist.”
For the next five years Zelnis was the Gorey’s organist at Christ the King. When Gorey moved to New York City to become a personal manager for musicians, Zelnis took over running the music ministry at Christ the King.
The job wasn’t as easy as it looked. One challenge was that Vatican II threw out all of the old style Latin and Catholic music.
“People were having trouble adjusting to the new music. We couldn’t play the old stuff as it was almost banned,” Zelnis said. “I was constantly trying to find music to play.”
Over the years, more and more Catholic contemporary composers have emerged. “We have a full repertoire. Now we can do the old banned stuff as well as the newer music. We play everything.”
During his very first Christmas Eve midnight mass at Christ the King, a young woman was home for the holidays visiting her parents who lived across the street from the church. It was a tradition for her to walk across the street and sing a solo during the midnight mass. Her name was Janis Knox.
“She sang Ava Maria while I played along with her,” Zelnis said. “She liked my playing. She started calling me when she got jobs singing at weddings. Then I started singing with her and then we started dating for 20 years.”
They worked together at the Goodman Theater and Steppenwolf. In addition to singing at Chicago Lyric Opera, Ed and Janis also performed at small clubs in Chicago with a six-piece band. Today Knox is the main cantor and soloist at Christ the King.
Remember Cecil Gorey? Gorey started managing singer and actress Eartha Kitt (she played Cat Woman on “Batman”). Toward the end of Zelnis’s college years at Northwestern University where he earned a music degree, Gorey brought the young student on as Kitt’s music director.
“From 1979 through 1980, I was her music director,” Zelnis recalled. “I used to travel with her to clubs in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Brazil.”
One gig he remembers playing for Kitt was at the 90th anniversary gala for Carnegie Hall.
“They has a big party in a gigantic tent,” Zelnis said. “That particular gig I got to conduct the Count Basie Orchestra. The program featured a whole bill of Broadway stars.”
These days the couple, who married in 2002, live in Park Ridge where Ed directs the Park Ridge Chorale community chorus. They still make the trek to the South Side to conduct the choir and sing at Christ the King, which they consider home.
On Friday, Oct. 11, Zelnis will present a free hour-long concert for the community to mark his half century at Christ the King, 9235 S. Hamilton Ave., Chicago. The concert starts at 7 p.m., and features special guests (and Ed’s wife) Janis Knox, the Ed Zelnis Trio and Janis Knox and the Zelnis Strings. A reception will immediately follow.
“The concert will be a thank you to the parish for being part of my life,” Zelnis said. It won’t be church or classical music. We’re going to do fun stuff, classic rock, jazz and some show tunes.”
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