MS Band Director

For music educators - By music educators

How do you present your Winter Concert/Christmas Concert

I hope that the title is not confusing, but I'll try to be a bit clearer in this question.

I taught my first 3 years in the deep south on the coast of Mississippi and I am currently a grad student in Michigan. Considering how much I hear about being politically correct, especially here, I often wonder how would I approach a Winter Concert? Should I have students perform only secular holiday tunes and avoid the sacred tunes all together. Should I have students perform secular tunes and make sure that I have Hannukah, Kwanzaa and any other religious music that would occur in that time of year or should I just avoid holiday music all together and play standard lit? Also what kind of assignments would you give to students who's parents say that they cant perform Christmas/Holiday music? They have to get a grade somehow.

I'm curious to what you guys do.

I look forward to hearing your responses.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Carpenter on October 21, 2011 at 12:50am

The Winter concert is our first concert of the year, so the music selections are pretty varied. Students can sit out for the holiday music and perform the other stuff. We usually throw in a couple of Christmas-y tunes right about now. Between three bands we are doing five holiday tunes, four of which are secular (I didn't do that on purpose; these just happen to be the pieces I programmed for this year). I live in a conservative community and haven't had any complaints.