Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Christmas Concerts

Mike has been fortunate to get to play in a couple Christmas concerts each year, which really helps to make the season for him. This year was no exception. While his favorite concert to play in is Rob Gardner's Christmas concert, Rob did not put his on this year.
He once again joined the Scottsdale Symphony Orchestra in their Messiah sing-along. As he had to leave church to make it there on time and I didn't arrange for a sitter for Amy, I didn't make it this year, but he said it was quite good compared to previous years and that his conductor, who has a habit of talking for 90% of the concert, actually stayed on task and the concert was only an hour and a half.

Anther concert he got to participate in with the SSO was at the beautiful Lutheran church that the orchestra rehearses at. I was able to attend this one, along with my parents, Summer (who was home for Christmas from BYU-Idaho) and Jessica. It was really a nice concert. They had a couple of their church choirs (divided up by age group), a really good brass quartet, a hand bell choir, an amazing organ solo, and of course the orchestra. They played a lot of classic Christmas hymns, a couple of Mack Wilberg arrangements, and some readings of some Lutheran scriptures and quotes. It was interesting to compare the words in their hymnal to the ones from ours - like a 3rd verse to Angels We Have Heard On High. All and all, it was a nice concert though and Mike did a great job! The orchestra sounded beautiful and Mike looked very handsome!

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