All Upper School choirs performed in the annual winter holiday concert, “Gloria: Rejoice & Sing”, Friday evening at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica, conducted by Choral Director Rodger Guerrero.
Singers originated from the Jazz Singers, Bel Canto, Wolverine Chorus, and Chamber Singers while several musicians were either part of Symphony Orchestra or out-of-school organizations.
“I think the concert went very well. We didn’t have a lot of time to practice a walk-through of the concert, but we all made it work. Every group did well and had some really nice moments,” Abby Shaum ’16 said.
The second song of the concert, “Psalm 8”, was dedicated to late science teacher Jim Brink and was performed collectively by all choirs.
“[Psalm 8] is a very moving piece, so you could feel the audience’s emotion throughout the entire piece, and Mr. Guerrero definitely did a good job of letting the audience know how much Mr. Brink meant to all of us,” Kayla Darini ’16 said.
The concert was opened by all female choir students, who performed “Sing! O Sing!”, followed by “Psalm 8” by all choirs.
Afterwards, male choir students sang “How Can I Keep from Singing?”, “Artsa Alinu” and “The Most Wonderful time of the year” with accompaniment from student and professional instrumentalists.
“[Before performing], everyone was really excited, and we were all really full of energy,” Shaum said.
Bel Canto followed the male performances with four songs, “The Snow”, “Al Shlosha D/Varim, “Home for the Holidays,” and “Children, Go Where I Send Thee”, featuring solos from Kayla Darini ’16 and Su Jin Nam ’16.
Jazz Singers performed one more round of songs before intermission, which included “I’ve Never Been in Love Before”, “The Christmas Song”, “Jazzy Ol’ Nick”, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, and “I Love the Winter Weather”.
“[After performing], I think everyone was really excited because we all put in a lot of work. We all felt like we accomplished a lot,” Shaum said.
After 15 minutes, Chamber Singers resumed the concert with six songs, “Laudate”, “Angelus ad pastores ait”, “Two Spanish Carols (1. Spanish Lullaby)”, “Two Spanish Carols (2. Spanish Carol), “Y’susum Midbar”, and “Ding Dong! Merrily on High”. All songs were performed a capella.
The concert closed with two final songs, “Gloria”, and “Peace, Peace”, which included all choirs.
“We sang the best we ever had on a lot of the songs and our final piece, “Gloria”, which involves all the choirs and professional instrumentalists, was fantastic and powerful,” Darini said. “I had a lot of fun.”
