Courtesy photo
33rd Annual Holiday Concert – Dec. 15
Westfield Community Concert Band
The Westfield Recreation Department will host its 33rd Annual Holiday Concert featuring the Westfield Community Concert Band and the Edison Intermediate School Broadway Singers on Friday, December 15, 2023, at 7:30 p.m. at Edison Intermediate School, 800 Rahway Avenue, Westfield. This free public concert culminates the band’s 111th anniversary concert season. The band performed its first annual Holiday Concert at the Roosevelt Intermediate School in December 1990 with the Roosevelt “Sharps and Flats” chorus.
Highlighting a program of holiday favorites, the band will perform The Night Before Christmas, a music setting of Clement Moore’s poem of the same name, featuring Kerry Stubbs, a Union County based vocalist, actor and music educator, as narrator. The programs will also include The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, made famous in the 1960’s by vocalist Andy Williams. The band will also perform contemporary arrangements of the classics, Ukrainian Bell Carol, and Once in Royal David’s City, both arranged by Philip Sparke.
The band’s program also includes A John Rutter Christmas Suite, a compilation of traditional holiday carols, by English choral director and composer, John Rutter, The Eighth Candle, a celebration of Hanukkah, by composer Steven Reisteser. The band will also perform Leroy Anderson’s popular holiday composition, A Christmas Festival, written for the Boston Pops. This very well-known selection is a medley of the most popular Christmas carols, including “Joy to the World”, “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night”.
The Broadway Singers will perform a variety of holiday music featuring the choir’s unique arrangements and choreography. The program will conclude with a combined performance of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” with both band and choir, an annual tradition dating back more than twenty-five years.
The Westfield Community Concert Band is conducted by Dr. Thomas Connors, now in his 19th season with the band. Westfield music educator Stephen Markowski, vocal specialist in the Westfield School District, co-directs the Edison Broadway Singers.
As the band completes its milestone 111th concert season, the band continues to seek out experienced area musicians to perform a wide variety of concert band literature for its many area concert events. Interested musicians should contact Dr. Connors through the band’s website, info@westfieldcommunityband.com. The band rehearses each Wednesday evening from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the community room located in the Westfield Municipal Building 425 East Broad Street.
The band’s holiday concert program is sponsored in part by the Westfield Recreation Department, Megan Schaffer, Director. Made possible by funds from the Union County Office of Cultural & Heritage Affairs, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
