On Wednesday, December 12, 2024, the Bowie choir put on their annual Winter Wonderland concert for friends and family. The student choirs’ voices carried the holiday spirit throughout the fully packed auditorium as applause only got louder after each song.
“The holiday season is such a choir focus time and I feel like it’s the time the choir gets the most attention, if someone only listens to choir music once a year it is usually something surrounding holiday music,” choir director Aaron Bourgeois said. “The cool thing about that is we get a bigger audience than we sometimes do and it’s a great time to show that off.”
The concert started with a stellar performance from the newly made show choir. The Bowie show choir integrated dancing and music while they performed the hit songs “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber and “Last Christmas” by Wham. The audience cheered as they watched students twist and turn to the beat of their voices.
“A lot of times you get on stage and the combination of nerves, adrenaline, outfits, and knowing your folks are out there in the audience, makes everybody give that last 10 percent,” Bourgeois said. “And because of that, I tend to hear the best performance of these songs I have ever heard and I just sit back and enjoy it.”
The Varsity Tenor-Bass Choir went on soon after and student instrumentalists backed up the voices of the choir for the song “Please Come Home for Christmas”. There were saxophones and drummers from the band program, and additionally a bassist from the orchestra program. These students with different skill assets all coming together to add their spark to this winter concert is what made it remarkable.
“Whenever I was invited just for one random song, I was like that’s neat,” bass player Sydney Homlliman said. “It was memorable in general to just be invited to help out because this concert is a very fun and a special occasion.”
The Varsity Tenor-Bass Choir ended with their annual performance of the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy”. Students did faux ballet moves as they sang, making the audience laugh and applaud.
The laughter from the audience continued as the parent choir did a surprise performance featuring Bourgeois. The parents sang in off-key notes but were full of holiday spirit that brought ear-to-ear smiles to everyone in the crowd. By the end of their time on stage, everyone in the auditorium was singing “Jingle-Bell Rock”, helping out the inexperienced parent choir.
The Varsity Treble Choir then left the audience impressed as they sang the Latin song “Hodie” by Joan Szymko. The alto and soprano voices layered together created an angelic sensation in the auditorium, leaving listeners’ mouths agape.
“In other concerts, we do classical music and songs we are not familiar with, but in this concert, we get to sing songs we all know and love”, Vice President of the Bowie Choir, Anya Cherukuri said. “When we’re singing these songs we can have fun and enjoy the Christmas spirit that’s around these songs.”
After the Winter Wonderland concert, the choir hosted a desert social for all to attend. The room fluttered with chatter and hands went to fill their plates with offered sweet treats.
“This was a fantastic show, you could hear how passionate they were about this music,” sophomore Sabrina Wagner said. “It made me so happy to be here because you could hear the joy in their voices and the choir seemed to be having the best time.”
