I went to a private Christian school for my entire primary and secondary schooling growing up (kindergarten - 12th grade). This school was started by the fairly strict Baptist church that I attended for my entire life up until I moved out of the state. And of course, one of the biggest cultural battles in the Baptist church was that of the evils of rock music. I definitely knew people that thought that “2/4 beats were the devil’s music”, and that things like electric guitars, drum sets, and upbeat music had no place in the church or the school that said church happened to run. The pep band was the only group that was allowed to play upbeat, modern music during basketball games, and that set list was tightly controlled.
But fortunately in 1990, we had both a band director and a choir director that were younger and also didn’t believe any of that nonsense. They believed that music should be fun and that all music had value. So this is the story of how these two men colluded together to spring one of the most rockin’ Christmas concerts that school had ever seen onto the unsuspecting parents and board members and the part that I played in it as a participant.
I started playing in band in 5th grade. I wanted to play drums (but so did everybody else) and somehow I ended up playing clarinet instead. By the time I got into the high school band in 9th grade, I was also playing drums in the marching band and sometimes in concert band. But I can also sing and so I was in the concert choir too. The choir was not my choice, mind you; I had intentionally not tried out for choir at school because I wanted the study hall (and figured that two instruments was enough to practice). But the choir director at the school was also the choir director at the church, and since I sang in various choirs at church he knew I could sing, he not only changed my class schedule without my permission but called my parents and told them that I would be in the choir, and then came marching into study hall and publicly PULLED ME OUT to go sing in choir because he needed tenors and he already knew that I could sing.
Incidentally, I was the recipient of the National School Choral Award for my school in my senior year of high school, so I guess he was kinda right. I also got a first place ribbon at the state school music contest for my clarinet solo that year, so I guess the clarinet was also kinda right for me as well. Suffice it to say that I am musical, ‘kay?
Anyway, every year the school would put on an “all school” Christmas concert where every band and every choir at all levels would play something. And that year, the band and choir directors decided that they were going to make it a bit theatrical to get the drama club involved as well and also kind of tell “the story of Christmas” through music. At one point, we even had these interesting pylons up surrounding the band that had special black light paint on them so that they could change the colors to make them look like stars, or fire, or ice. It was pretty amazing, and I spent a lot of time working with the band director and a team of some of his favorite students to help build and paint those sets and help figure out how the show was going to go. I was excited about it, and I was a sullen teenager at that point, so you know there must have been some good ideas in there if I couldn’t wait to dress up for that concert and play it!
By this time, the Christmas music scene had already been turned on its ear by Mannheim Steamroller and their “classical rock” versions of classic Christmas songs that had been fully ’80s reborn - synthesizers, drums, modern beats, exciting! And then in 1989, Michael W. Smith, already a controversial figure in the “God Rock” scene, threw the Christian Christmas music scene into complete chaos with his Christmas album that featured full-on rock drumming, electric guitars, and the dreaded 2/4 beat! The “secular vs. Christian” rock debate had been raging hot and heavy in my household for years already, so of course you know that I was totally into MWS’ album because it was a modern approach to boring old traditional stuff and it was also actually good.
So, the band director and choir director decided that they were going to shake things up with this theatrical production and chose some - GASP! - secular music with Mannheim Steamroller’s “Stille Nacht” and some decidedly - GASP! SWOON! - rock music with MWS’ “Gloria”. “Stille Nacht” was the big culmination of the theatrical piece by the concert band (which I was in) that was depicting Satan’s (imagined) attempts to prevent Jesus from being born in the stable. All the songs leading up to that point were telling the story of trying to keep the Savior from being born and redeeming humanity, with “Stille Nacht” the very pregnant (pun intended) interstitial point depicting the entire world collectively holding its breath, waiting for the birth of the Messiah.
At some point, the concert choir had filtered in behind to add some vocals to the song as in the recording, and the hall was mostly dark, with the black lights on depicting the stars and ice, and blue lights on the band and choir. It was pretty breathtaking and it worked perfectly (in my mind). Up to that point, I feel like the parents were enjoying it but were also maybe kinda not getting the more theatrical bits. Either way, they were still (apparently) interested at that point. And, knowing what was coming up along with having had a hand in the production’s design and flow, I was satisfied with that. Even if the parents weren’t having a good time, I was and at the time, that was all that mattered to me.
While it was dark, they wheeled in the drum set on a mobile riser, the guitar players (from the pep band) came in, and I moved back to rejoin the concert choir while the other choirs and band members from other grades filled in my seat and augmented the rest of the concert band to add some symphonic band elements to it. At this point, all of the musical performers (except for the elementary school kids) were on the stage. It was a massive group, and glorious (to me) in its scale.
The lights suddenly came up on the choir to depict the angels appearing to the shepherds at night and we started in on a sort of traditional (but short) arrangement of “Hark The Herald Angels Sing” and then the band played MWS’ “MEMOIRS: A Trilogy” (which ended with an intro transition from “Hark…” into “Gloria”). As the intro played, the full lights steadily came up to full brightness on the entire stage, and then we launched full-bore into “Gloria” with no pause! There was nowhere for the parents to hide, and the locomotive was a-comin’ down the tracks straight at them! We had two piano players in a “dueling pianists” sort of arrangement to play the opening bars (which is fairly intricate and one of the pianists was a girl that I was sweet on at the time, so I heard her play it a lot and knew how long it took for her to get it - but she did it flawlessly in the performance!), and THEN THE DRUMS AND GUITARS KICK IN as the two soloists that we had out front started singing. The looks on the parents faces was ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS! Some of them loved it, some of them clearly hated it, but the majority of them were so confused as to what they should feel that it made the entire experience totally worth it! As the full choir came in for the chorus and the rest of the song, the sound in that room was tremendous!
For my part at that point, I was just super happy for and proud of Kathy for nailing that piano part, along with that other pianist. ;)
I just remember being in that choir, being in that band, and knowing that every single student that was playing or singing was having the time of their lives and that we were so happy to sing and play something that we actually enjoyed. So many of us - so many! - were trying not to just break out in dance or movement because we didn’t want to see either of the directors get fired on the spot. I wanted to be the drummer so badly, but I knew that my place was in the choir, and I sung my lungs out that night. And getting to be part of a group effort that was so subversive to everything that the school and my parents wanted to force on me was an amazing thrill that I have not ever forgotten. It wasn’t a big rebellion, but it was rebellion nonetheless and the fact that it was condoned (and conceived) by two people that I looked up to as leaders was something that I will always remember. So to Ron Nelson and Jeff Geshay, here’s a Christmas hats-off to you for taking the risk and collectively giving the administration the finger (or at least the first knuckle) and letting your students have a little fun for Christmas!
Both of those directors were eventually fired due to continually doing little things like this in service of the music and the students rather than the administration, which is a damn shame. So many of those people missed the point, but those two men knew how to connect with their students, and that school was made worse by not recognizing that.
It still give me frisson to this day whenever I hear “Gloria” or “Stille Nacht”, thinking about that concert. In my mind, of all the concerts I have ever participated in, that is by far - by FAR - my favorite one. And in its own way, it was one of the most punk shows in which I have ever performed. Punk is where you find it, choombas.
