The Work of Christmas

Before we get to Christmas, the Saturday prior to Christmas was full of celebration. 

In the morning we had our ward Christmas party. After the movie nativity we made last year, I wanted to do something a little simpler. In March the idea came to me that all the Primary kids should draw pictures of the scenes of the nativity and we would put them on the wall like an art gallery. We asked the kids to draw them during singing time a few Sundays in November and December. But the last Sunday we planned to finish the project, church was canceled due to snow. We sent out a message to all parents of primary kids and asked them to have the kids do the final picture at home. We got fewer of that one, but the ones they did were awesome.

We set it up before the party started. I love how it turned out.

The first picture was of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

The second picture was of the angels and shepherds.

The final picture was of the Wise Men and the star.

When the party was over we rushed home and loaded up the car for our final kid choir performance of the season. We had been invited to sing downtown in a nearby city that is famous for its Christmas traditions. We sang to draw in crowds and bring their attention to an emergency shelter that our youth serve at once a month during the cold time of the year. Our set was about an hour long. We performed the same songs we'd done at the interfaith concert, as well as standard Christmas carols. Bryan came as the sound guy and set up the mics and speaker. Just as we were about to start we discovered that our entire file of audio tracks had disappeared. While my friend and I directed the singers, Bryan recreated the set list on the fly by remotely connecting to his desktop at home. He's amazing and I'm so thankful for him!

We were all chilly, but it was warmer than it had been for most of the week, a miracle that we were grateful for. Many of our singers couldn't be there, but we had some bonus singers in friends and siblings that joined us, so we had enough people to be heard! We performed in a courtyard next to an inn on a busy street for foot traffic. We had a steady audience the whole time, though not everyone stayed for all the songs. Those that listened seemed appreciative of what the kids were doing. And we're glad we could help the emergency shelter in their fundraising efforts.

Glee Club Rehearsal

This season, in addition to our full choir numbers, we added small group songs that included costumes and choreography. I played this song for my codirector when we were in the planning stages and she immediately loved it. But we knew this one would take a lot of extra work. The solution? We put our own kids in it, that way we didn't need to make space for it in our rehearsal schedule, we could just have several playdates/rehearsals to work on it. And that's just what we did.

I was standing in the back of the house next to the sound booth (aka Bryan sitting at a folding table with the sound board) when I realized that Linus' mic was turned off. You can see the moment that Cooper saw me frantically motioning for him to reach over and flip the switch on the mic pack. Charlie Brown was the hero of this number.

Phoebe lost most of her voice the day before the concert. Thankfully, she had enough for her low solo line in another song and for her duties as Snoopy.

See that skirt Sophie is wearing? She and her friend spent at least an hour on Saturday making those fluffy tutus. I think they really completed Sally and Lucy's looks.

Organized Chaos

We had our summer concert for our kids choir tonight. We added some new performance elements like costumes and wireless mics. It's was chaotic, but it turned out well overall. And I took zero pictures of the actual performance because my phone was being used to run all the audio tracks. I do have these pictures of what the space looked like today after we finished setting up. And hopefully the other parents will share the videos and pictures they took.

Also, Topher was so excited that he set out his choir clothes before he went to school.

Waving Through Another Window

The final video I'm going to share from the concert is from Sophie. This, Waving Through a Window from Dear Evan Hansen, is the same song she sang for her school talent show. But instead of the 90 second version, this is the whole song. Bryan bumped the key up a few steps so that it fell a little more comfortably for her.

What Is This Feeling?

Sophie and her friend Gemma had a lot of fun preparing What Is This Feeling? for the concert. They're pretty well matched vocally since they're both such strong singers. The acting was a fun bonus for both of them.

Fun fact: there's a chance this movie won't work. When I uploaded it to YouTube I got a warning that it might not be visible in all territories. So, if you can't see it, let me know. 

We Will Rock You

Back in January, when we started planning the Easter concert, the question of the kid choir came up. We knew we wanted them to sing a few songs for Easter, but is that all they would do? If so, that would be two seasons in a row of only church music. I suggested that we still have a separate concert for them where they could perform secular music, but we would only do two choir songs and let the kids fill in the rest with solos and small group numbers. I thought this would be a great way to let them learn and perform both kinds of music. So we set the kid concert for the Friday following the Easter concert.

In retrospect, this was a poor choice.

My co-director and I were so worn out by the Easter concert, we really had to drag ourselves to the finish line on the second concert. We still gave it our all, but we were running on fumes by the end of Friday night.

We started by setting up the gym on Thursday. Usually we do this the day of, but Thursday night was our dress rehearsal for the soloists and small group numbers and we wanted them to run through their songs in the proper setup. We only had them come for a short time, long enough to practice their song a few times, then they left and we moved on to the next group. We saved our own kids for last and were there until nearly 10pm.

Topher was so excited for the concert that he wanted to wear his choir shirt to school. This is the sight that I woke up to on Friday morning. I convinced him to change and save the shirt for that night. 

It took most of the day to prepare and gather our supplies. This is after I'd already dropped stuff off the day before.

The kids did a great job. They opened with We Will Rock You (we slipped in this easy bonus choir number) and then sang Better When I'm Dancing. The next twelve songs came from the kids. Then we finished with the whole choir singing Fight Song.

Among the other songs that night, Topher sang Hush, Little Baby while Cooper played the guitar.

Phoebe and her friend Isaac sang Princess Problems from the new Snow White.

Sophie and her friend Gemma sang What Is This Feeling? from Wicked.

And Sophie sang Waving Through a Window from Dear Evan Hansen.

It all went well and we were glad when we finished! I'll post the videos of the songs over the next few days.

Sophie borrowed my phone while we cleaned up.

I borrowed it back to take this picture of the two directors in our new shirt design. Walmart stopped making the green t-shirts (they're only $4 each, we can't beat the price) and some of the kids outgrew them. We had to do a shirt shuffle among the choir and we both gave up our green shirts to kids who needed them. Thankfully, our friend who made the other shirts (her daughter sings in the choir) agreed to make us these new, larger logo shirts!

This choir is so fun and I love that we get to lead it, but it definitely takes a lot of time and energy.

In the Spotlight

We had our third kid choir concert tonight.

It went well.

We're really tired.

That's all for now.