Amita Manandhar
The Paw Print
Christmas songs and jingle bells filled Adams State University gymnasium on late Sunday afternoon, as the ASU music department hosted their annual family-friendly musical concert titled ‘Winterfest.’ The concert was held in Plachy gymnasium on Sunday, Dec. 2.
This annual Winterfest concert is unlike any other concert done by the music department. The main theme of the concert is that everyone is a participant. The concert aimed to give the community a taste of Christmas music.
All of the music faculty members and all ASU ensemble and choir groups were in attendance at the concert. As the concert started Dr. Matthew Luttrell welcomed the audience. He said that the concert consisted of both traditional and non-traditional Christmas numbers.
Luttrell said the goal of the concert is to give back to the community by providing performance of music that people enjoy this time of year. He said Winterfest allows the ASU music department to celebrate the performance of every student.
“It provides sort of a maximum effect of what we do here at the department of music. Every individual from every discipline be it singing or instrumental, you name it we are doing it today,” he said.
The concert started off with ‘Sussex Carol’ by Joseph Flummerfelt, ‘Gaudete’ by Mark Burrows and a traditional carol ‘A Merry Christmas’ by Arthur Warrell. These three numbers were done by ASU chamber choir and conducted by Dr. Beth Robison. The high celling of gymnasium amplified the sounds of the choir.
The next performance was an audience sing along, and the song was Let it snow. The entire audience member participated in the sing along. There were total of four sing along numbers in the concert.
After that performance ASU Big Band played Sugar Rum Cherry by Peter Tchaikovsky. The musical piece was from The Nutcracker Suite and James Doyle conducted the band.
One of the best songs Jingle Bells was the next audience sing along number performed by ASU music faculty. After that song Concert Choir performed three more Christmas musical numbers. 68 West group took the stage to sing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas after the choir.
The concert also played Russian Christmas Music by Alfred Reed. It was performed by ASU Wind Ensemble. Luttrell told the audience members that the Russian Christian music is not like other Christmas tunes. It is not something that audience would be able to sing along to. Luttrell said that this particular Christmas tune is music based out of four hymns from the eastern orthodox religion in Russia.
The last piece of the concert was Joy to the World. Audiences were encouraged to clap, or use anything to make music and participate. The entire audience clapped their hands in synchronization with ASU Wind Ensemble.
ASU music student Christina who performed in Winterfest said the concert was fun and was a great experience.
“It is very chaotic as it is always last minute thing, but it is always fun to sing Christmas songs,” she said.
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