Started over 10 years ago by the music department and the school administration, the homeroom holiday concerts are one of the annual traditions that feature the students, teachers, and songs of our well-respected music program. Featuring Haverford’s  Symphonic Orchestra,Wind Ensemble, Combined Chorus, and Chamber Singers these annual 46 minute homeroom concerts were held on Tuesday the 16th for freshmen and sophomores, and on Wednesday the 17th for juniors and seniors. Freshmen were introduced to a tradition on Tuesday where they were exposed to old holiday classics such as Leroy Anderson’s arrangement of Sleigh Ride, or the traditional Ukrainian Carol of the Bells.
But they also listened to other pieces performed by the groups that do not share the same holiday flavor as the music department showcases a range of repertoire for each group, highlighting the student’s abilities to change their musical style and express the different musical nuances which make each piece unique. Before the Wind Ensemble got to their finale of the ever popular Sleigh Ride, they played two distinct pieces starting with Richard Saucedo’s Wind Sprints, which was followed by Percy Grainger’s Immovable Do. Windsprints, as the name hints at, was a very fast speed filled with long runs of notes which was a piece that impressed and woke many up from the Tuesday morning daze, while Grainger’s Immovable Do was a more sophisticated and “proper” piece of traditional English woodwind literature. Throughout the Immovable Do, at least one person was playing the “Do” of the song; the note C.
The Combined Chorus, which is made up of the two different choral groups of the Concert Chorale and Chamber Singers, performed a German Renaissance Motet, Lobet Den Herren, which was followed by Frank Ticheli’s There Will Be Rest, a dramatic contemporary work of choral literature, the lyrics of which, namely, “There will be rest” are hopefully a precursor to what the break will be like. The Combined Chorus finished their set with the Chamber Singers and the traditional Carol of the Bells.
One outlier was Haverford’s Symphonic Orchestra. The Orchestra does not perform a holiday themed piece, but did play the theme from a Western Movie soundtrack, that of The Magnificent Seven, which is about a band of outlaws and their relationship with a small Mexican town.
The Holiday Homeroom Concerts are one of the long-standing traditions here at Haverford that students in the audience and on stage both look forward to as they recognize the achievements of the music department and the fact that winter break is just around the corner.
Chamber Singers performing “Carol of the Bells”:
Wind Ensemble performing “Sleigh Ride”:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5R26OfTehI&feature=youtu.be
