The Winter Holiday concert was held and performed on December 16th. According to Erin O’Brien-Mazza, who is the director of the band choir, says the performance went really well. She also includes how the students learned many important things about music through this performance. Mazza also includes how fun it was to teach all the students that performed. She explains that all the students have different personalities and different abilities. “It’s fun working with the different abilities and talent levels,” she says. Although Mazza says the performance went really well, she also describes the challenges that they came across. She states, “working with the chorus is always a challenge because you don’t get to rehearse with each other until the day before the concert.”
Mazza also includes how this concert was different from last year’s concert because this year she had a lot of new students, mostly freshmen. “It took a long time just getting used to the format of band and just being at everything,” she says. She also includes that it was a challenge just to get all the students on the same page. Aside from the performance, Mazza also explains that she has been noticing some drastic improvements within the students. She says, “[she’s] seen a lot of improvements in personality, like dedication wise, they are definitely more dedicated than they were before when they first started.” Mazza also includes that the students have been learning to count which they have not known how to before.
Todd Cole, who is the director of the choral art society, also says the performance by the students went great. Cole says that he was really pleased with the performance. He also adds, “I thought they did everything the best that they could.” Cole also says there were only a few major errors that needed to have any attention paid to them. “[He] was really happy,” he states. Cole also says teaching the student choir is always a long journey. He explains the groups are completely different, making them have their own challenges. Cole also adds, although the process of the preparation took quite some time, there have been a lot of “huge” improvements from when the students first started.
Even though the performance went as planned, Cole mentions that himself and the students came across some challenges. He says “just getting technique, getting them to know sound is a challenge.” Cole also mentions, “[he thinks] people helped each other throughout this because any one little thing falls out of place, then it creates panic and anxiety and stress for everyone and I think everyone helped each other through tonight.” He says everyone helped each other tonight and all the students were responsible for their behaviour.
