Rudolph

Today’s Holidailies prompt is: “Tell us about your favorite holiday concert experience.”

I was very much neck-deep into the music performance program at my high school.  As a freshman, I joined Concert Choir, and for Christmas, we would break up into duets, trios, quartets, and quintets… walking around downtown Los Gatos and caroling people in the early to late evening hours as they were shopping in the first week of December.  It was always the Friday night before the Los Gatos Christmas Parade.  When Branham closed and I transferred to Leigh, I joined the choir (led by the same director) and did the same thing the next year.  And I love caroling a great deal; it’s a lot of fun to sing in public and have people sing with you.

When Branham and Leigh merged, the music program pretty much doubled in size.  We could break up into large groups and bring a more dynamic sound to the Christmas carols we sung.  After my sophomore year, I was ‘drafted’ into the marching band, because I used to play saxophone in middle school.  That year, I had a choice.  I could join the choir in caroling or join the band in playing songs.  Well, I had two years of caroling, so I figured, what the hell… might as well see how the other half of the program does it.

I loved it.

I was put into a saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone).  I was marching bari and playing tenor in the jazz band, so I played my bari sax for this quartet.  We had a bunch of arranged saxophone tunes, but the one that I fell in love with was the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra‘s arrangement of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  The best part was the solo for the bari, which had the melody in the second verse.  So, I played it and played it, until I had it nailed down enough where I could start improvising a little bit.  I thought that I was pretty good, if I do say so myself.  But the other musicians hated it.  Oh, well

That year, 1992, was probably one of my most memorable moments in music.  And it’s a holiday memory, to boot!

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Now playing on iTunes: The Chipmunks – The Chipmunks Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)

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