by Annabelle Smith
As the Holiday Spectacular approaches, every practice room, stairwell, and empty bathroom is filled with music. The air is quite literally filled with the sound of the holidays — all thanks to our instrumental and vocal departments. With the performances drawing closer and closer, they’re busy with rehearsal after rehearsal, perfecting their music for the stage. I met with Hannah Brown, Lauren Gunther, and Niamh Troupe to find out what the departments have been working on and what we can get excited to hear on opening night.
SMITH: Thanks for joining me today! Before we get into the questions, I’d like to have you introduce yourselves and tell us your department.
BROWN: Hi, I’m Hannah. I’m [a junior] in the instrumental department, and I play violin.
GUNTHER: My name is Lauren, I’m a senior vocalist and… yeah, I like to sing!
TROUPE: I’m Niamh. I’m a senior instrumentalist. I play clarinet.
SMITH: So, as we all know, Holiday Spectacular is only a few weeks away. How are you all feeling?
BROWN: Stressed. (laughter)
GUNTHER: Yeah, definitely stressed. I am really excited though, Holiday Spectacular is my favorite performance, probably all year. So, I’m excited. It’s — it’s a lot, though, but I’m looking forward to it.
TROUPE: There’s like… so much stuff that we have going on, it’s like, you know, what’s kind of gonna be thrown next? I wouldn’t be surprised if we got something the day before. (laughter)
SMITH: Well, that’s sort of a segue into the next question: how long have you all been preparing for this performance?
BROWN: Oh, uh… the Spectacular itself? Like, probably three or four weeks?
NIAMH: Probably, yeah.
BROWN: We have other things we have to worry about. We have the Messiah, we have… we just had a concert at the Elks Lodge, we have a lot of things going on. So, I’d say this month is when we crack down. It’s in full swing now.
GUNTHER: Yeah, um, in concert choir we’ve been working on, like, our concert choir piece for… probably since October, September. But we haven’t started on the opener and closer until more recently. So…
TROUPE: We also haven’t had any rehearsals with the choir yet, which is great.
GUNTHER: It’ll… it’ll magically come together. Somehow.
BROWN: It always does. (laughter)
TROUPE: We just did our first rehearsal with our opener and closer, actually with the full orchestra. Wasn’t it like last week?
BROWN: Yeah, it was Friday. We had the first rehearsal. We’d only done one rehearsal with that song, and then one rehearsal with “O Holy Night,” with everybody.
GUNTHER: Oh, and I forgot chamber choir. We are going to do a piece for Holiday Spectacular, for a little bit we thought we weren’t going to… so we got our piece like a week ago. That’s fun.
SMITH: Wow. So, I know the vocal and the instrumental departments always have so many beautiful pieces that you perform throughout the night. There’s just so many things that you all do and I’m always so blown away by how much work you put into it and how many numbers you’re able to put on for us. But, if you had to just pick one, what would you say is your favorite piece that you’ve been working on for Holiday Spectacular so far?
BROWN: “O Holy Night” is always a favorite, but that’s an every year thing. I would have to say… we’re doing a “Happy Holidays” and “White Christmas” kind of remix this year, and I’m really excited about that.
GUNTHER: Um… I love the arrangement that we’re doing of “The First Noel” in concert choir, and also in cantala we’re doing this song called “TEXT” and it’s so pretty, I love it.
TROUPE: If we’re talking, like, ensemble-wise here, then I’m gonna be honest, I’m kind of confused about what songs we’re even going to be playing. (laughter) We were thrown, like, four of them, and it still hasn’t been decided which one we’re actually doing. But I think — I think — we’re playing this song, “Christmas on Broadway,” it’s fun—
GUNTHER: Ooh, that’s a fun piece.
SMITH: That sounds really cool!
TROUPE: We were actually going to see if we could — well, we were going to — uh, Te’a and I were going to try and see if we could convince Mackley to change that to be the opener, because it has a choir part, and, you know, we could arrange string parts, but we were like, “hmm, is she really gonna say yes to that? Probably not.” So it was like, oh well. But actually, that’s probably not my favorite. We’ve got a clarinet quartet we’re going to be playing at the Spectacular, we’re going to be playing “Here Come Santa Claus,” and I’m excited for that.
SMITH: Yeah, that’s cool! I loved your clarinet ensemble piece last year, so I’m excited to hear this one!
TROUPE: Oh, thank you.
SMITH: All of those pieces just sound like a lot of fun and really beautiful things that you’re working on. Are there any other pieces you’d like to share with us this morning that you think people will especially enjoy?
BROWN: We are doing a… it’s called “A Coventry Carol” and it’s going to be featuring Christian on the bass, which I’m really excited to hear. He’s doing a great job on that. So that’ll be exciting to hear, and I think we’re doing that for Spectacular.
GUNTHER: The opener and closer are going to be… big, and fun. So, yeah. Look forward to that.
TROUPE: Also, I think the jazz band — I think — is playing at the Spectacular. That’s… it’s going to be great. I think we’re actually going to be on stage this time and not in the little side boxes. It’s going to be nice actually having space.
SMITH: So I know you’ve already touched on this, but I know “O Holy Night” is by far my favorite piece of the night, and it’s such a beautiful collaboration between your departments. I was curious to know, what’s it like preparing for a performance of that scale? There are so many people on that stage when you finally put it all together!
BROWN: Counting. Key signatures. Watching. Making sure your heart doesn’t jump out of your chest when they do the bass drum, because, you know— (laughter)
TROUPE: Oh my god.
BROWN: —it’s a little… yeah. It’s such an experience though, because when you play it for the first time with everyone it’s so magical. Like, I remember my first time playing “O Holy Night,” and of course I could not play all the notes as a sophomore, but it’s so magical hearing it all together. It’s amazing.
GUNTHER: I remember, as a freshman, I thought I knew what I was singing, but then like once we put it all together, the sound was just so overwhelming that I could not physically even hear myself. But, it was just a super cool experience. Now, though, I think there’s a sort of tradition of like… I don’t know, the upperclassmen teaching the underclassmen because it’s like we’re handing down this tradition. And, um, it’s always exciting to hear people, I don’t know, learn it for the first time! It’s such a fun experience.
TROUPE: I find it fun every year trying to see how Mackley’s going to conduct it this time. (laughter) It’s never the same. Never the same.
SMITH: Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us. I know it’s always so magical for me and I’m not even on stage playing it, so I can only imagine how much of an experience that is for all of the performers on stage. For my last question: for two of you, this is your last Holiday Spectacular—
GUNTHER: Oh, no.
SMITH: —not to get emotional at like 8:00am. What does this mean to you, and how it this the culmination of all of the other Holiday Spectaculars that you’ve done before?
TROUPE: I mean, I don’t know. I don’t like to think that it’s my last one. But, I just know that when I’m up there, playing whatever song it happens to be, I’m just gonna start crying, it’s gonna happen. Like, it’s inevitable. I know it. Ugh, you know.
GUNTHER: I don’t know, I feel kind of… we’ve had four years of a lot of hard work, and I think performances are just a time to have fun and show off what you can do. It doesn’t need to be, like, super scary, it can just… yeah!
TROUPE: You spend all this time preparing and then it’s just… being able to live in that moment, and all that hard work has paid off—
GUNTHER: Yeah.
TROUPE: —it’s really nice.
GUNTHER: It's really self-gratifying.
SMITH: That’s wonderful! Thank you all! I’m sure until opening night, you and the rest of your departments will be super busy practicing and rehearsing, and I can’t wait to get a sneak peak at all of the pieces that you shared with us at the all-day rehearsal. So, thank you for sharing with us today!
ALL: Thank you!
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