Yulefest celebrates sounds of Christmas
An annual celebration of the sounds of Christmas, Yulefest this year again features various local choirs who converge to share good tidings through song and choral fellowship.
Under the direction of MarcAndré Bougie, those school choirs join the Texarkana College singers and, accompanying on piano, Mary Scott Goode. Admission is $5 for this concert on Friday, Nov. 30, start time 7 p.m. in the Truman Arnold Student Center Great Room on the Texarkana College campus.
“This year we have a larger number of high school choirs participating,” Bougie said. TC’s singers are the anchor choir as the host. Joining them are Veritas Academy Singers, the Liberty-Eylau High School Choir, Arkansas High School Choir and Texas High School Choir. That’s the largest group in a few years.
“The magic of Yulefest is upon us once again,” the choir director said.
The first rehearsal already happened, and Bougie was impressed. “Probably the best first rehearsal we’ve had in many many years,” Bougie said. “The students were very responsive, very well pre-
pared. I think everybody’s just ready to sing some Christmas Carols. I sure am.”
This year’s repertoire consists of the selections each program chooses to perform on their own. Then there are the songs the entire group will sing together.
“We all get together, 125 of us, and we sing five numbers,” Bougie said. They include “Sweet Little Manger Child,” “Shepherd’s Joy,” the first movement of Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” a singa-long involving everyone attending and then the classic “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
In its entirety, the program runs about 45 to 50 minutes.
The admission charge helps pay for future Yulefest concerts to purchase the rights to music and other expenses.
The other special thing about the concert is that the night before it takes place, the choirs all come together to record all of the music. “The next day we sell the CDs,” Bougie said. At only $5, it makes a great gift for friends and family, he suggested.
“It’s a great way to get the Christmas shopping started,” Bougie said.
The concert is a chance for students in each choir to meet each other.
“There’s a cliché that says music is a universal language. It’s kind of true. They all come from different backgrounds, different schools. They come together and sing, and they have this connection,” Bougie said. That makes the concert musically fun and challenging. It’s also popular, forever drawing a big audience.
“You have a big, nice round sound and then hundreds of people to listen, so that’s fantastic,” Bougie said.
And for a concert like this, the choirs have a lot to work with to make it memorable.
“First of all, there is a lot of great Christmas music. In terms of seasonal types of music, nothing comes close to Christmas, really. There’s a lot of great music to choose from. Also, it’s an easy concert to sell in the sense that you know there will be people there,” Bougie said. They’ll want to sing, and that’s matched by an enthusiastic audience made up of family, friends and regular TC music attendees.
“That energy, I’m telling you, when you perform and have a crowd it brings something out of you that would not be brought out if the audience was sparse,” Bougie said, noting it’s a “sharing experience.”
And the music itself is upbeat.
“It feels good,” Bougie said.