The Spirit of Christmas Concert

I don't have time to write this, but I'm taking time because as time goes on, the memories get pushed back out of the way and run the risk of being forgotten.

This past weekend was our annual Spirit of Christmas concert. It was a wonderful community event for those who participated and those who attended. For me it was a lot of work, for a long time, but it was worthwhile and personally satisfying. There were a lot of "tender mercies" along the way, so of which I'll recount here.

I began working earnestly on the project, after Marissa's wedding and after we got back from Idaho. I had collected a large file of music over the year, and was planning to sort through it and make decisions about what songs to sing in the concert. When the alloted time came to work through my stack of music, it was no where to be found. I searched for several days, but to no avail. I finally resigned myself that I would have to start from scratch if I was to meet my deadline to have music ordered and ready for the first rehearsal. It was heartbreaking, and I shed many tears over it, but once I straightened myself out and started moving forward I was flooded with a spirit of peace. I felt inspired as I discovered new music and pieced together a program of music, that for the most part I had not planned on previously. This was a very interesting to me.

The next choice blessing came as I made an arrangement of "Silent Night". My first plan was to re-arrange the song that Dad and I wrote last Christmas, but as I tried to do it, it just didn't flow. So, I turned my thoughts to an arrangment I had made 25 years ago in college of Silent Night. I enjoyed entering it into my music software program FINALE, and I reworked it, and added the 3rd verse to the arrangment. It took so much time, but it felt so good! I thought it would be fairly easy for the choir, but it proved to be a huge challenge for them. Finally, for the last performance, they gave an rendition of it close to what I had imagined. That was a sweet experience for me.

I also had other fun projects for the concert. I love the arrangement of "The Little Drummer Boy" on Josh Groban's CD NOEL. I bought the piano/vocal arrangement and wrote out the melody only for the children's choir to sing. Then I listened to the recording a million times and figured out a flute part, sythesizer strings, and trumpet part. The trumpet is really a percussion kind of thing, if you listen closely you can hear it in the middle instrumental section. Anyway, I asked a guitar teacher at Let's Make Music studio to come up with the guitar part based on the piano score and recording, which he was excited to do. I also asked 9th grade boy-Ben Haggard to play the snare drum-in shepherd's costume of course. Collin played the synthesizer in the concert, and the piano part for rehearsal. It came together wonderfully, as we had some special lighting effects and the instuments sounded fabulous. My only dissappointment was the choir sort of retrogressed, and at the concert didn't have clean confident entrances, and I missed a major cue for them. Oh well, that happens sometimes, and I'm certainly not a perfect conductor. All in all, I was very happy with it. It was a great experience for me to try to duplicate the depth of the recording.

I guess I didn't have enough to do, because I decided to audition the children for a specialty number "Somewhere in My Memory" from the movie home alone. After listening to the John Williams score, I couldn't just have a piano accompaniment. So I got the character of the instruments in my head, and composed an accompaninment after the manner of John Williams using a choral score I found as a base. I had 2 little girls sing, and added Collin on key board with a split voice--music box and pizzacato bass, for part of the song, and just music box for the other part. We also had another synthesizer/strings part, 2 french horns and jingle bells. It sounded cool. But I couldn't stop there, I put the stage screen down to cover up the Chorale, projected a "Home Alone" type image of a lighted house, while 4 little 4/5 yr old ballerinas danced. Amazingly we tracked down 4 ballet costumes from when Cara took her first year of ballet. The dancers were adorable, the singers were precious, and the number was just as sweet as could be. Whew, I really got my moneys worth out of that FINALE program!

Another blessing was working with John Barrow and Russell Griffin to make the rehearsal CD. We got together and in 2 sessions recorded 2 songs for the CD. It was very fun, but John and I each had 4 parts to record for Silent Night--very tight parts. So the fact that we did it in one evening was amazing. And John had only had the music for a week.

More blessings. SHS has been under major construction this year. During Thanksgiving break all of the seats in the auditorium were replaced--we gained 5 more seats. A lovely black curain was installed covering the back wall of the stage, and some new speakers were installed. The doors were finished accessing the stage (we were told initially that we couldn't use the timpani, because they couldn't get through the doors to the stage), the choir room was complete enough to use, and access to the catwalk for lighting was created. Previously the catwalk access was obtained by going outside, climbing a ladder, scaling the roof and entering a tiny door into the roof. Needless to say, the catwalk was seldom if ever used. Dec. 1 -Monday a crew and I went to SHS to construct our usual wall on stage to backdrop the risers. We usually painted it beautifully, and it is usually up all year. This year they took it down for construction access. I had decided this time, not to paint it but to hang some gold lame fabric and decorate around the gold dress I bought for Marissa's wedding but didn't use! :) When we arrived to construct the wall, we discovered that a beautiful black curtain had been hung covering the ugly back of the stage. We were absolutely stunned, I just about cried! Needless to say, we didn't construct the wall-which we were told we would have to remove after our concert. I was so glad I hadn't planned a show with a set that needed to be painted! The gold hangings looked stunning in front of the black curtain. Another tender mercy.

Oh, and on another note, Dana Hardman had designed the stage. She purchased the fabric, and other supplies, and worked on stage Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for a bit. Wednesday night late, her father passed away. She had planned to do all of the major decorating on Friday before the rehearsal and after school got out (there are 3 classes held on the stage until the construction is completely finished). She left early Thursday morning. I called another friend, Kris Kearsley, she stepped in and finished what Dana had started. She did an absolutely incredible job. I never worried. That was a huge blessing.

On Tuesday, Dec. 2 I was put in contact with a guy who agreed to help us with lighting. His name is Scott Cherry, and he is a professional choreographer. He came over to help on Wednesday (amazing on such short notice), but the 20 foot ladder was missing. Thankfully, Scott is not afraid of heights at all, he hoisted a 15 foot ladder on to two 3x3x2 cubes we were using on the set, and straddled the top and focused lights. AAAAH, it made me nervous, but he was perfectly comfortable! He went up and down on the catwalk, in and out of the light booth, calling out light numbers to move up and down as he adjusted. How did he memorize all of those light positions, and piecemeal everthing together? He found old cords and old jells laying around in boxes of junk, and somehow made it happen, rewiring and syncing things. In the meantime, the school administration tracked down the missing ladder (it was at Middleton Elementary) and had it delivered back to SHS. We were so grateful for the school's support in our needs. Scott came back on Thursday and Friday to make sure all was well, and then left for his job in N. Carolina that he commutes to every other week! Amazing that we had that kind of help.

Lastly along these lines. We decided 10 days ago, that we should check into hiring a professional sound engineer for the concert, based on our bad experiences in past concerts. The first quote we got was for $1250. I declined that saying the most we could do was around $450-so there was probably no chance. Well, Mike Strehlow our sound guy, didn't give up. He contacted the lady who does Music on the Green every summer. She needed the work and agreed to provide all of the equipement and engineer the sound for $500. I gulped and said, "okay--that's a lot of money, but this is a concert and we need to have good sound." So, she showed up Friday afternoon, had everything set for the rehearsal, and came back and engineered for the 2 performances Saturday. She had azure blue hair, a nose ring, work boots and inside out t-shirt tags showing, but man, she was a nice lady--Shira, from SHEROCK SOUND. She did a fabulous job, and we had NO issues. It was amazing how that all came together.

Another issue I can't let be forgotten is our poster and title. This is our third annual Spirit of Christmas concert. For the 3rd time our poster was taken to the school district to be approved for 'backpack' mail, and posters to be put up in the schools. For some reason it was denied because of the word "Christmas". This put us into a state of shock, and dismay. At the same time the controvery over the English curriculum including the vile, pornagraphic, lewd and disturbing book "GRENDEL" was taking place. We could not fathom how a book like that could be read in school, and a poster with the word Christmas could not be put up. We let it seeth over the weekend. One of our members, Lynnette Summers, brought up the dichotomy in an e-mail to the distict superintendant. I don't know how many other people were involved in influencing a change, but by Monday afternoon, approval of the poster/flier was given and we were back in business.

This has become way too long, but ever since Elder Bednar's talk, I can't look at my life without seeing "tender mercies". I have just enumerated many of them to you. I feel like the work I do is not my own. I really feel the Lord has a hand in it. He loves us so much. He helps us achieve our righteous desires.

The concert was a lovely experience. Collin accompanied the Children's choir on the piano for one song, on the synth for 2 more, and for the little girls duet. Anna sang with the Children's choir. Cara, Helen and Craig sang with the Sherwood Chorale. Quin/Dad took pictures. Susan and Jon came out of the audience and sung the Hallelujah Chorus. It was great having everyone involved. I achieved my goal of conducting without music for all but the Little Drummer Boy. It was delicious to me! I had many doubts along the way. The sopranos struggled--or I struggled with them so much. Sometimes I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I wondered why I had done this! It's so much work, it's so consuming. I continually struggle with maintaining balance in my life. Well, after performing and seeing how many lives were touched for good, after hearing the music at that performance level, after feeling that Spirit of Christmas in the concert, it was worth it! I'm glad to be involved with so many wonderful people. I met new people, and I have forged new friendships and achieved new things. It has been wonderful to enlarge my circle of friends beyond the church members. There are so many amazing, and choice people out there, not in our church. I really feel that being in the community with them, is my missionary work. Even though we haven't really talked about the church, my choir knows I have faith. I have told them how I love singing about the birth of Jesus Christ. They see it in my face as we sing, and I get teary eyed. I share my devotion very subltly, but it's there steady and strong.

To end this epic piece, I will quote a verse from the song "In the Bleak Midwinter" the piece that is my culminating feeling for this concert and season.

"What shall I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wiseman, I would do my part.
Yet what I have, I give him, give him my heart."

I love the music of Christmas. I love my Savior, and I love sharing my testimony of him through song. It is one of my greatest joys. I want to give him my heart, and follow him my whole life.
I hope music will always play a big part of my holiday season.

Thanks for reading to the end... I love you too!

Mom