On Dec. 17 from 6-8 P.M., Irvington High School’s choirs held “Wintertime Cheer”, the annual winter choir concert, in the Valhalla. The concert included performances from the Concert Choir, Encore Choir, Chamber Chorale, Treble Ensemble, and Men’s Barbershop Quartet. 

The concert choir began the concert with a performance of “Cantate”, “A Winter Night”, “Ave Maria”, and various other holiday songs. The songs performed at the concert ranged from joyous to sorrowing melodies. Next, the Encore performed the songs, “Wonder of Winter”, “Esta Noche”, “Wintertime Cheers”, and “Beboppin’ Santa Claus”. Throughout the concert, it was refreshing to see the choir sing culturally diverse songs such as “Esta Noche”, “Ave Maria”, “Aleluia Brasileira”, “Koudjay”, and the traditional Czech song “Hydom, Tiddlydom” at the concert. The concert went smoothly and it was clear that the students had practiced long and hard for the event. Many students like Ronit Kiri (12) on Encore, practiced on their own time as well. 

“We start at the beginning of the year and practice every day in class,” said Kiri. “I practiced at home whenever I could and with some classmates outside of class whenever we were with each other.”

Although the performances seemed perfect to the audience, the students had noticed a few problems they wanted to improve upon for the next concert. For Neel Dhavali (10), it was about timing. 

“I feel like the only thing we needed to improve on was just remembering where to enter the music,” he said. 

Angelica Zatarain (11) added they could further practice techniques that support their sound, vowels, counting, and more. 

The Men’s Barbershop Quartet performance of the song “A Quick Break” was one of the most memorable moments of the concert. The quartet was made of Jonathan Chung (12), Nooran Roeen (12), Stefano Mach (11), and William Huynh (12). It was a unique performance that combined the group’s theater and choir experience into one. Audience members thoroughly enjoyed the segment as there was laughter heard all over the theater many times throughout their performance. 

After the Treble Ensemble and Chamber Chorale had performed their pieces, it was time for the concert to come to an end. To wrap up the event, all of the choirs joined the chamber chorale on stage to sing “Twelve Days of Christmas”. However, instead of only singing the song themselves the choir involved the audience to sing as well. Row by row each line of audience members were encouraged to sing the line of the song they were assigned to based on their row number. By the end of the song, the choir had all of Valhalla singing along with them. Overall, the concert was well-prepared and heart-warming, the perfect way to start off the holidays.