Twas The Night Before Christmas
From Plank Road Publishing
by Teresa Jennings
For almost two centuries, the memorable poem by Clement Clarke Moore has been passed from generation to generation helping shape our mental images of Christmas. We wanted to wrap it up musically for today's children, and who is better to do that than Teresa Jennings?
As you can hear from the recorded excerpt, the melodies are memorable but easy to learn and sing, and the song is broken into several sections. The opening is traditional and it moves naturally into one of several "hip hop" sections that your kids will love (and your boys will have a great time performing). At the center of the work is a short ethereal section appropriate to text, and a big finale.
The Mice - In the recording, you hear a "Greek chorus" of sorts... made up of mice! They comment on the action and just generally have a great time of it. These parts can be performed by a couple of kids or a small group within your group, or perhaps some of your younger kids can pantomime along with the recorded tracks. Also, during the hip hop sections, there is a group of "Manly Mice" who accent key words with great enthusiasm. Here's where some of your more theatrical (dare we say, "hammy") boys will shine.
The Recording: Lots of Options - You will find four different audio tracks of the work:
- Full Performance including the soli mice.
- Full Performance without the soli mice, so that if you want the security of the recorded singers, you can still provide your own soli mice live.
- Accompaniment Tracks including the soli mice.
- Accompaniment Tracks without the soli mice, in case you want to provide your own singers for these parts.
This is a guaranteed crowd pleaser that will work well with one class, or with several classes or grades combined. It's a great way to share a bit of familiar history with your singers set in an imaginative way that everyone will enjoy.
Director's Piano/Vocal Score with Reproducible Singer's Parts & Performance/
Downloadable PDFs and Performance/
Downloadable component is 42.4MB
Sound clips:
