This last week was two of the three CVCA Christmas concerts. The handbells and strings concert was the prior week, but this week was the band concert and the choir concert. Mer has many talented musicians in her classes, so she certainly wanted to go, and I went along since I have a number of students in Fools and Ceili Club who are also in musical groups.

Both concerts were held in the Chapel/auditorium. The band concert was Tuesday, and it was held even though we had a snow day on Tuesday. Happily, the roads were clear by the evening. The choir concert was Thursday. Both concerts were excellent. I am amazed at the high level our Fine Arts department performs at.

The band concert lasted about an hour, and featured the junior high band and the high school band, as well as three ad hoc small ensembles. Some of the small ensembles needed to blend a little more, but the full bands were great, especially the full high school bands. They had a really big and warm sounds, especially when they played the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, which they ended the evening with.

The choir concert was longer – it went two hours. There are six different choirs at CVCA, including a show choir, gospel choir, chamber singers, and several “normal” choirs. The show choir is always fun, and they opened the evening with a medley of Christmas songs with choreographed dancing. The concert then featured the junior high students, and after an intermission, the gospel choir, chamber singers, and high school choirs. The evening ended with a CVCA tradition of having all the high school choirs sing together with choir alumni for three songs, which included the Hallelujah Chorus. That is a pretty great piece of music for this time of year, and it was great to hear it performed in two different ways. The CVCA concerts are a good part of the Christmas season.