Holiday Dance Concert Report

On Tuesday, December 8th, the Allen High School Philharmonia and Sinfonietta orchestras performed a variety of fascinating pieces. The orchestras began the concert with “Holiday Dances by Mark Williams". The next piece that the orchestras performed was “Saint Nick’s Canon on the Housetop” arranged by Carrie Lane Gruselle. The last piece that the AHS Philharmonia and Sinfonietta orchestras performed was “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” arranged by Lloyd Conley.
In the first piece, Holiday Dances, Mark Williams composed starts the piece in the key of C major with a catchy intro that leads smoothly into the rest of the piece. The violins and violas have the melody while the cellos and basses have a very short and lifted part. The musicians
The violins accented their notes with the snare to emphasize the overall lifted style of this piece. The drum set contrasts with the melodic part the rest of the ensemble play, this gives the music a very bouncy and jubilous feel that would not be present without the constant beat and subdivision provided by the percussionist. There is a short portion in the middle where the violins play pizzicato and the violas have the melody, the violas play with a timid sound where it should be powerful. After this short interlude, the violins and violas return to the melody with the cello and bass playing the counter melody. There are several places where there is a build up a slight pause occurs which serves to emphasizes the lifted feel. At the end there is a fermata that leads into pizzicato playing that gives the piece a sense of
The orchestras played this piece to create a great closing to the concert. The conductor made a great decision to arrange this song to be at the end giving almost a sense of closure. The addition of the percussionist again helped give the piece the nice lifted feeling, as well as help the orchestra stay together; however the dynamic contrast between the four sections was rather light.The use of a snare drum drastically changed this piece, it feels more like a slow waltz. The little use of dynamics, however, kept the melody from popping out as much as it should have. In the beginning of the piece everybody played the notes with space between then; however towards the end, a few of orchestra members played the notes smoothly and connected whereas the rest of the orchestra played the notes spaced. The intonation and a steady tempo was retained throughout the performance which gave this piece a focused tone. The violins and violas did an excellent job using full bows, but the cellos needed to use long bows so they can create a deep, rich, and crisp sound. This piece made the audience feel excited and eager to hear more because many of the audience members recognized this