Attending Christmas concerts and the like is supposed to be the bain of a parent’s existence. The sitting through song after simple song, the crying babies, the other parents frantically running into your line of sight so they can get a close-up of Junior playing his viola out of tune, all of these things tend to make Christmas concerts more like a trial to be endured than a truly fun experience.
I can remember a couple years ago when the music director at our kids’ school thought it would be a great idea to use the concert to showcase the school piano teacher’s skills. So in addition to an endless retinue of kids, we were also subjected to this guy’s solo compositions for piano. Some of the songs weren’t bad, but somehow the two-year-olds in the audience didn’t appreciate them. And the parents didn’t appreciate how their two hours of hell was getting stretched perilously close to three. I think our headmaster’s finest moment was when he told the music director that four songs from this guy was enough and made her cut his last three works from the program.
This year, the program was shortened to an eminently tolerable hour and fifteen minutes. There were three separate areas of the “stage” in the school gym (the only place where you can fit this many kids and their parents), so that transition times between the choirs, orchestras, and bands were minimized. There was a good mix of beginning groups and advanced groups throughout the evening. Perhaps most importantly, a professional videographer had been hired to create a DVD of the event sold for $15 in the school cafeteria.
Okay, I lied. The DVD’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that, finally, my kids are now good enough that they are in the “top” band — the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. These kids can really play — and they sounded great! After they were finished, there was a rousing ovation, a mixture of proud parents breathing a sigh of relief that all those years of lessons had finally paid off, and the happy parents of the younger kids, who could now GO HOME!
And isn’t that the best Christmas present of all?
Note: Word Munger is a non-combatant in the War on Christmas. But I’ve been checking Sadly No for the latest news from the front line.
We’re still years from this phenom but I remember with great pain (and laughter) the South Shore Middle School concert in the gym. We had the same set-up, as you may remember-three different band groupings. As the eighth flute (the lowest ranking second flute), I was easy to spot. After the concert my father just said, “I noticed that you were the only one in the whole school who keeps time with her head.”
I am not a natural musician.
Anne,
I don’t remember the three-band setup from South Shore-probably because I wasn’t in band, so I didn’t drag my mom to the concerts. As a parent, I’ve seen practically every configuration, but this (apparently old-fashioned) one is definitely the best.
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