Plains Christmas rings in with elementary concert

PLAINS – Plains families welcomed the winter vacation of 2015 with the Plains elementary school’s Christmas concert.

For the performances, the K through 6 graders were split into two groups; first the kindergarten through third grade classes performed; the classes sang a variety of Christmas songs, occasionally using bells for some, with two grades coming together for some pieces.

After a short intermission, the fourth through sixth graders performed a band concert. They performed a variety of orchestral Christmas songs, using recorders and other instruments for some. They also performed pieces using their bodies as percussion instruments and stomp cans, a package of items hit with drum sticks to create percussion notes. At the end of the show, the kids did a giant piece with all the upper grades performing parts of the song.

Brittany Marjerus, music teacher for the Plains Schools, recalled splitting the grades was a new addition to this year’s program; by splitting the grades up, the families with only younger kids did not have to stay for the whole evening, if they did not want to – younger kids could also meet an earlier curfew. She felt it all worked out, though, with each group performing well and the program working as intended.

“It’s always nervous when you try something new,” she said. “But it worked out wonderfully to have the K-3 have their own little concert.”

The grade split also allowed each grade to perform more to show off more of their musical skills. In years past, each grade only had one or two pieces they performed to leave enough room for all the grades to get in the program; with this set up, though, each grade had three or four pieces. 

The week before the elementary concert, the high school and middle school had their own concert. Marjerus said she felt this was one of their better concerts with the choir putting lots of energy into the songs and the bands giving it their all with each piece.

Both concerts also featured scores from The Nutcracker. These pieces were performed flawlessly as the kids performed Tchaikovsky’s famous music; it was a testiment to their musical talents to perform complicated pieces so well.

According to Marjerus, the kids began practicing for the concert right after Halloween. This gave them approximately two months to prepare for the concerts.

She recalled the kids all seemed to enjoy the process of learning the pieces and preparing to show off for their families. The older kids especially liked it, though, since they were learning a greater variety of pieces and hands on musical styles, such as the body percussion and stomp cans.

Marjerus got the idea for the cans at a teaching conference in 2015; one of the presenters came up with the idea of the cans and showed them off during a talk. Once they were implemented in Plains, over the summer of 2015, the kids were excited to use them.

To avoid the enthusiasm to play the cans becoming a distraction, the classes had jam sessions before practices to just have fun with the instruments.

“They really want to play them, so they really make sure they follow the directions so they get that opportunity,” Marjerus said.

She also praised all the kids for their performances, saying it was a group effort between herself and them. She said she had great kids to work with and there was lots of talent in all the grades.