Merry Christmas, TPP Readers! I’m back with some more Christmas-related posts from the last week:
Happy Sunday—and Merry Christmas!
—TPP
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Good afternoon, my loyal subscribers! Apologies for a late post today; yours portly crashed out after a long but productive day at work yesterday, which included my students’ annual Christmas Concert.
I’ll allow GEOTUS to articulate this sentiment in the way only he can:
Regardless, in the grand tradition of The Portly Politico, it’s time the annual Christmas Concert Postmortem, where I break down the program and how everything went.
For non-paying subscribers, don’t worry—the kids did a fabulous job, as they always do. My Middle School Music Ensemble (MSME) played three pieces:
And my High School Music Ensemble (HSME) played four pieces:
For whatever reason, the HSME played a lot of songs whose titles are questions. Don’t ask me why!
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My buddy John and I played our annual Yulestravaganza the evening of Saturday, 14 December 2024. We played a couple of one-hour-ish sets, full of classic Christmas carols, standards, and hits.
The only attendees were the barista and Dr. Girlfriend. One shifty-looking nerd sauntered in halfway through and set at the extreme far end of the coffee shop, apparently putting as much distance between us and our Christmas cheer as possible.
We had a really good time.
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Yesterday my students performed their annual Christmas Concert. It was a really fabulous concert, and I am super proud of my students. Other than some very small glitches—for example, the first soloist on “O Holy Night” came in late (no big deal—we just kept vamping a C major chord until he started) and his wireless mic got a little crackly on the first few words—it went very smoothly.
There are essentially two parts to the Christmas Concert. The first part involves the Foreign Language classes, which perform Christmas songs in their respective languages. I always say that it’s not really Christmas until the Latin students sing “Rudolphus” (“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Latin). That part is fun, but it’s kind of like checking a box to me: the Foreign Language students get a grade for singing in the concert, and it means a lot to a longtime Latin teacher for the students of the various Foreign Language classes to sing.
The second part is the real concert, when my Middle School and High School Music Ensembles get to play. Here is the program for that portion of the concert:
I didn’t get too crazy with our programming this year, and a few repeats from last year (“Jingle Bell Rock,” “Silent Night,” and “O Holy Night” are always perennial picks).
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This morning at around 8:21 AM EST my students will perform their annual Christmas Concert. It’s a time-honored tradition, and represents the biggest performance of the first semester.
I often describe the Christmas Concert as my favorite and least favorite day of the school year. It’s my favorite because it is incredible seeing my students perform, especially while glorifying God. It’s my least favorite because it’s usually a stressful and busy day, after which I am completely drained.
However, this year I am feeling much better about it than I normally do. My kids always do a great job, and the concert always comes off without a hitch (or without too many of them). I think I am feeling confident about the concert because I have actually had time to prepare myself and my students for it properly.
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‘Tis the season, dear readers, for yuletide merriment—and all the related craziness that accompanies this jingle-belled time of year. Yours portly is exactly halfway through the middle of two weeks of arts-based insanity, and all is well.
Last night my school’s Middle School Drama students, as well as students from our Dance and Vocal Ensemble classes, gave their annual Christmas production. They performed a cute little play called And a Groundhog in a Pear Tree, in which some of the less popular holidays—February 29th, April Fool’s Day, and Groundhog Day—attempt to write a new version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in order to save the big annual Christmas ball (the titular Twelve Days of Christmas have gone on strike).
This coming Friday, 13 December 2024, my Middle School and High School Music Ensemble students will give their annual Christmas Concert. We have a great program planned. The Foreign Language classes also get in on the fun, with renditions of various Christmas songs in their respective languages. I always say that it’s not really Christmas until the Latin students sing “Rudolphus” (“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Latin).
So, here’s a glimpse into the life of a Technical Director for Performing Arts during Christmas, which is crunch time in the performing arts world.
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After the big Christmas Concert on Friday, 8 December 2023, I took a few quiet moments to unwind and scribbled out a little piece in my music journal. It became “Post-Christmas Concert Scribbling,” then I added the pretentious “Scribblings I” to the title, which means there will eventually be a “Scribblings II” at some point.
It’s a short, fun little piece, meant to have a vaguely yuletide sound to it, unfolding at a moderate tempo. The whole thing has a slight bit of pomp to it, as many great Christmas carols do.
The major professional highlight of the Christmas season for yours portly is the annual Christmas Concert at school, a time-honored tradition that is frequently honored in the breach (leave a comment and I’ll explain what I mean by that). It’s a huge undertaking for myself and my students, but when everything clicks, it makes for a truly magical experience.
Here are past posts about Christmas concerts from 2021-2023:
Happy Sunday—and Merry Christmas!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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Eight days ago (Friday, 8 December 2023), my students had their annual Christmas Concert. The Christmas Concert is one of the two marquee concert events of the school year, the other being the more amorphous Spring Concert, which can fall pretty much anywhere between March and April (and even early May). Of the two, the Christmas Concert is my favorite, and while it’s also one of the most stressful days of the year, it’s also one of my favorites.
Our Christmas Concert follows a predictable format, consisting of performances from our choir, our World Language classes, and finally from my Middle School and High School Music Ensembles. Historically, dance classes have performed pieces prior to the musical portion of the concert, but this year marked the first that dances were not included, as the dance class performed before the Christmas Musical, which was on Friday, 1 December 2023.
Honestly, excluding dances was a major improvement. I have nothing (well, not much) against dance as an art form, but it was never a comfortable fit in an already-overstuffed Christmas concert format. It also adds some minor additional headaches for yours portly, who in the past has had to move pianos in the middle of the concert to accommodate the dancers. At the risk of editorializing (but isn’t that the whole point of a blog?), I find most of these “dance” routines to be rather distasteful and a tad lurid, although I am to report that this year’s dance performance was really exceptional, tasteful, and beautiful.
But I digress. What of the music itself? Let’s dig in, like a Wisconsin dad shoveling snow.
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Today is the day of our big Christmas Concert at school. It’s incredibly fun and incredibly stressful, but if everything has gone according to plan, it should go smoothly. It’s worth it to see the kids singing and playing and having a good time.
As I’ve grown older and, arguably, more professional (and almost certainly more ornery and ill-tempered), I’ve scaled back a bit of the theatricality and bombast of the Christmas Concert to something a bit more manageable. Gone are the days of singing while standing on a piano (I did that once, years ago). I also strive to make the concert focused on the kids and Jesus.
One big change this year is that our Dance and Choral students won’t be performing, because they had their performances as part of the Middle School Play last Friday. The Foreign Language Students will still get up there and belt out Christmas tunes in various languages.
I’ll be doing a full write-up one Saturday (possibly tomorrow) covering it, but for today, just pray for yours portly. I’m confident it will be a good concert, I just gotsta get through it!
As a preview, here’s what my students are performing:
Merry Christmas!
—TPP
The Portly Politico 