The Winter Music Festival, which was held on December 8 at 7:00 p.m. in Benjamin Hall, brought cheer and holiday spirit to The Benjamin School community. The music reflected the spirit and togetherness of the holiday season as  the Third-Grade String Ensemble, Middle School Performance Ensemble, Honor Band, String Ensemble, Upper School Concert Band, Chamber Ensemble, and Middle School Chorus all took to the stage for a night of memorable performances .

“The school performs a winter recital to showcase the hard work and dedication our students have put forth from the beginning of the semester, as well as to celebrate the great season of winter,” said Mr. Andrew Winters, the Middle School’s co-band director who also teaches strings and the musical theater class with Mr. Bob Bayless.

Some of the songs that were performed were “Snow,” “Ultimate Christmas Sing Along,” “Chinese Lullaby,” “Zoot Suit Santa,” “The Hanukkah Song,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Babathandaza,” and “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

For the middle school students, it was a rare chance to share the stage with their upper school counterparts. “My favorite part was playing the ‘Ultimate Christmas Sing Along’ with the high schoolers,” said seventh grader Jonathan Skatoff. “This was a really cool experience to be playing with such older kids and see what I will become in a few years.”

The best part of the winter music festival is how the students collaborated to make the show a success. The music, selected and conducted by Lower School music teacher Mrs. Belen Clifford, Middle School Co-Band Directors Mr. Bruce Huber and Mr. Andrew Winters, and Upper School Music Director Dr. Nicholas Lockey, rang out joyfully throughout the auditorium.

“The songs were chosen characteristically based upon the winter theme,” said Winters. “This is an underlying theme amongst all of the songs within the recital, as the point of the show is to celebrate the holiday season.” The annual concert  not only showcased Benjamin’s young musicians, but celebrated the different winter holidays and the joy of bringing people together during the season.

In recent years the lower and middle schools performed well into the night. However, this year the School changed the timing of the acts so the middle school and lower school students performed in the first act, before intermission, allowing them and their families to head home earlier if they wished. “I liked leaving during intermission because the Winter Music Festival is really long,” said seventh grader Kiran Spencer, a trumpeter in the Middle School Performance Ensemble.

The winter season is very culturally diverse because many ethnic groups and nationalities have their own holiday traditions.

This year’s concert featured songs representing the Scottish (“The Bluebells of Scotland”), Jews (“The Hanukkah song”), America (“Stars and Stripes Forever”), Christians (“Ultimate Christmas Sing Along”), and South Africans (“Babethandaza”). These groups are portrayed through different songs that tells the listeners the different cultures’ beliefs, history, and how they celebrate certain events.

The only bad thing about the Music Winter festival is we have to wait a whole year until we can hear the astonishing performances again.