“I thought our second song, ‘Antigua,’ was the one that went the best,” band director Todd Hollis said. “It’s one of those that we didn’t like at first, but then it sort of grew on us.”
The bands and choirs combined for their Christmas concert on Dec. 9.
“I think the concert choir pieces probably stood out to me as the most improved from our last rehearsal to concert,” Choir director Nick Franssen said. “They really locked in tonight and sang with a whole lot of emotion and a whole lot of energy, which I think just really made the pieces pop.”
The band’s most recent performance was the Kansas State marching show on October 4; but the Christmas concert includes a shift in styles because it is a sit-down performance instead of a marching performance, making a drastic change between seasons.
“This is always a tough concert; we’ve been out on the football field in marching band for so long, and we had just a couple weeks to prepare this,” Hollis said, “Getting the music prepared, and just getting our sound refined, because the sound is different outside than it is inside.”
The concert band, learning their pieces since late October, switched from the loud, marching style to a slower, more controlled sound for the concert band season. The choirs, while getting their music earlier, still worked with more pieces throughout the learning process.
“We have been flying and nailing work,” Franssen said. “It’s been unusual for the intensity and the focus of each rehearsal, of what is needed to perform at that level. So, that was probably one of the biggest challenges for students, not necessarily the music.”
Franssen also focuses on the men’s choir and the differences between contest music and Christmas tunes.
“The men’s choir killed it with their pieces, ”Franssen said. “They got their couple pieces; they got a more choral piece, and they just did awesome on it. Then ‘the Grinch’, they loved that piece, they sang so well, men’s choir has worked so hard this quarter.”
Though a Christmas concert, some of the music performed was what the groups will take to KMEA, a state music competition. While the band and choirs performed their respective music, the concert band and combined choirs performed a Christmas tune together at the end of the concert.
“I think that we peaked on all of the songs, especially the combined piece at the end, because we just had one shot at that,” Hollis said. “But it went really well.”
