This year’s band and choir concerts went against the norm with new music.
“The band portion was a nontraditional Christmas because last year we did a lot of traditional Christmas music,” said band director Christopher Morgan.
However, with completely new music comes a big struggle while practicing,
“The music that we picked was very difficult, in what was required to play it, but also because nobody knew it. They didn’t have any references to be able to draw upon,” said Morgan.
Many people have similar expectations when it comes to winter concerts. They assume the same ten Christmas songs that are on repeat all year will be played, but Morgan said he has a completely different view.
“A lot of people kind of use the winter concert as a throwaway, I mean, we’ve only been back for a few months and it’s the holidays everyone kind of has expectations of what they want. And I like finding new works,” he said.
“There’s a moment in a piece when we know we can do it. There’s this kind of collective sigh of relief and we all smile a little bit more and we all open up and in Krampus there is a moment like that,” said Morgan.
Morgan said there is often a part of a song that becomes a struggle when practicing but when [the band] gets to overcome that big build-up of not getting it exactly right is when confidence grows in the whole band.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it. I feel so accomplished after a successful performance,” said freshman Christian Berwanger.
Berwanger was in choir during both 7th and 8th grade years of middle school.
“I loved it. We did some really cool performances,” said Berwanger when talking about his experience with middle school choir. The first year of high school can be a big jump for many freshmen. However, Berwanger with his strong passion for music decided that choir was the perfect match for him.
“I’ve always loved to sing, and I’ve heard the high school choir perform at some school events. They sounded amazing, and I thought it would be a great experience,” said Berwanger.
“Balancing my own personal practice with my other commitments, like homework, clubs and sports, was definitely a challenge,” said Berwanger when asked about his own personal struggles while practicing for this year’s winter concert.
“Learning some of the more challenging pieces was tough. I was a bit nervous about performing in front of a large audience, but I practiced a lot and tried to stay calm,” he said.
Even with these challenges, Berwanger said he is not discouraged.
“I can’t imagine my high school experience without choir. I’m looking forward to learning more challenging pieces and continuing to grow as a musician,” he said.
“I tried to pick ones that weren’t just basic hymns or ones like Christmas carols that we had done in previous years,” said choir teacher Mrs. Kristin Gist when asked about what songs she chose from Disney’s selection.
The theme of this year’s choir concert was Disney’s Candlelight Processional.
“One of the struggles practicing was not everybody was going to Disney, and so it was finding a happy middle of practicing the music that we weren’t doing in our concert and that was only being performed at Disney, but also focusing on the music that everybody would be doing,” said Gist.
When picking what songs will fit best for the concert you also have to think about the audience, said Gist.
“One that was one of my absolute favorites is Rejoice With Exceeding Great Joy, and it has a bunch of different Christmas carols intertwined in a very cool, upbeat song,” said Gist.
(Featured Image): The ‘Ville Harmonic finishes off the choir concerts by doing solos. The ‘Ville Harmonic is a selected group of choir students that perform their own sets of songs.
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