Sing In The Holidays

This wonderfully majestic piece was written to serve as an opening song for your Christmas, holiday, winter, or seasonal performances, but you can certainly use it as a closer or a featured "big tune" within a performance instead. It's deliberately modeled after grander traditional carols, but with the emphasis on the music of the season. There is a full orchestra (brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion) on the Performance/Accompaniment recording, complete with pipe organ on the D.S. The melody and lyrics of the verse are so simple and repetitive, you might even invite the audience to join in on the D.S. Print the words in the program to encourage them.

The tune begins with full chorus singing in unison. Note that the second part, which is optional, does not sing at measure 5 the first time. At measure 14, the tune lightens up for a gentle, hymn-like section that offers an opportunity for you to feature a soloist or two. We chose to use one singer (Natalie Jaggers) until measure 18. At that point, we added a second soloist (Brynn Stebbe) to create a lovely duet. You can use as many soloists for this part as you like, or simply use the full choir, but very lightly. At measure 21, the full orchestra resumes with a crescendo into a repeat of the gentle section, only at forte this time. It is here that the full part 2 singers also enter (optional). At the D.S. and to the end, there is a bit of a slow down to really add to the power and grandeur.

In order to provide you with flexibility, we have created a unison version as well as a full version that does not include soloists. There is also an isolated rehearsal track to help you teach part 2. You can find these extras on our web site, MusicK8.com (See details in the box on page 79.)