Piazza Bergamo Downtown Warms to Lower School Choir and Percussion Ensemble

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It was one of the coldest days of the winter so far. In addition to their colorful Christmas sweaters, scarves, and hats, some of the young musicians in the Lower School Choir and Percussion Ensemble sported mittens and gloves, or pulled their sleeves over their hands.



"It was freezing, but they were real troopers," said Lower School music teacher Joy Hughes, about the students' performance during Greenville's Festival of Trees on Sunday, December 16 on Main Street's Plaza Bergamo.



"We learned that Orff instruments and recorders go out of tune in the cold!" she remarked, somewhat surprised.



In addition to the winter gear, hot chocolate helped to warm the students so that they, in turn, could warm the hearts of holiday visitors to Main Street.



The piazza featured fake snow (it might just as well have been real, considering the cold!), carousel rides, refreshments, along with the complimentary entertainment by community musicians and organizations.



This is the second year that Ms. Hughes has taken the choir and ensemble to perform at the festival. (The Middle and Upper School choirs also performed there this year on different dates.)



The 42 third and fourth-grade students in the choir and ensemble moved quickly to set up their instruments. "We took almost all the instruments in the music room," said Ms. Hughes, crediting the parents with helping to haul all the equipment.



The students played and sang carols from around the world: a Russian folk song, an Austrian carol, a French canon, and a Spanish carol.



The program proved a delightful way to salute Greenville's growing international community, to showcase the school's emphasis on global learning--and, of course, to warm the soul on a bitter Sunday afternoon.