Joyful noises raise Christmas spirits

The high school choir entertains the crowd with "The Twelve Days After Christmas", an interesting piece about the gifts from the classic carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

by Jered Engelking

Thursday night vocal and band students in grades 7-12 orchestrated a winter concert under the direction of Mrs. Behounek and Mr. Stanton.

Junior high choir sang two Christmas songs, “Cold and Still the Night” and “Feliz Navidad.” In “Feliz Navidad”, Jake Shaver played the Bongo drums, Tyler Geiger played the Claves and Clara Johnson shook the maracas. 

The high school choir sang five songs, three of which belong to the Messiah Book; “And the Glory”, “For unto Us a Child is Born” and “Hallelujah Chorus.” During the Messiah book, approximately 25 community members joined. The other songs the high school chorus performed were “The Twelve Days After Christmas,” and “Singin’ on Christmas Morn” with soloists Coleton Tompkins, Cassie Corbin and Calli Zimmerman.

Junior high band performed three songs,  “Matrix March” by Ed Huckeby, “Ultimatum” by Robert Smith and “Power Trip” by Dean Sorenson. 

The high school band also played three songs, “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” by Mannheim Steamroller, “Songs of the American Civil War” by a collection of authors and “Deck the Halls” by Mannheim Steamroller. 

The combined song between the junior high and high school was “Joyful and Triumphant” by Huckeby. The band had the audience join in singing the joyful songs with them. 

Chorus member Morgan Sanders said, “It was good to hear the crowd respond to our songs. ‘The Twelve Days After Christmas’ was a lot of fun because it was something new and exciting that we don’t normally do.”