By Eric Baxter
Staff Writer

For several years the Concord Community Music School has presented a Christmas folk concert with David Surette and Susie Burke as well as a “Gospel for the Holidays” lunchtime concert. For many in the area, one or both of the performances mark the offi cial beginning of the season, and without them the holidays wouldn’t be the same.

“Music is an important part of any holiday season,” said school communications director Cathy Wolff.

St. Paul School dance director Sharon Randolph instructs some of her younger ballerinas before rehearsal of the school’s performance of “The Nutcracker.”

Surette and Burke bring together a sampler of classic holiday folk tunes drawn from a world tradition. Many of those traditions stretch back to 1700s Britain, with a few unspooling into the dim past.

Among the favorites presented by the duo are the “12 Days of Christmas,” originally an English drinking song adapted for the holidays. “Deck the Halls” was originally a Welsh tune, to which American lyrics were added in the 1800s. “Adestes Fidelis,” also known as “O Come All Ye Faithful,” was fi rst set to music in the 1700s in Britain with words added at a later, unspecifi ed time.

Yet for the 54 faculty members and the 1,500 students, marking the holiday season with music is a concept that extends throughout the year. The school’s January Jazz program is as anticipated as their Christmas offerings. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of the Mozart’s birth and the school is celebrating in a number of ways.

“Music is important all year round,” said Wolff.

Yet the holidays, she said, have their own magic.

“This is a time when there is so much noise in the air, so much chaos. It’s an absolute joy to sit quietly and listen to music that embodies the season,” said Wolff.

Some of the more common music of the season is drawn from The Nutcracker Ballet, a children’s story by E.T.A. Hoffman, later adapted by Alexander Dumas for the stage. For many people, attending a Nutcracker performance is the offi cial beginning of the season. Indeed, most dance schools present the play as a way for students to garner valuable stage experience and show off their budding skills.

St. Paul’s School dance director Sharon Randolph, formerly director of the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, is no stranger to the Nutcracker, having performed in, choreographed and directed the performance for more than a decade.

Yet the show has never paled for her, she said.

“This (show) is a compilation of all the things I love about dance,” said Randolph.

This year’s St. Paul’s performance draws together more than 25 community dancers, school performers, semi-professional and professional dancers. The show, Dec. 16 and 17 at Concord’s Capitol Center for the Arts, will also showcase new sets and new designs integrating traditional themes and a few new twists. One of the newer traditions, said Randolph, was having a huge cape in the set that becomes the source of all the magic to bring the toys to life and save the Nutcracker from the Mouse King.

“There is so much to this story beyond the dance,” said Randolph.

To make the play portion of the ballet more accessible to her younger dancers, she said she changed the back story a bit making Drosselmeyer, the favorite godfather and character, and the Mouse King, two wizards that have been battling for eons. The Mouse King was once human and transformed in the past in to a rodent by Drosselmeyer. In revenge, he steals Drosselmeyer’s nephew’s soul and places it in the Nutcracker and the battle to get the soul back takes place on Christmas Eve and is witnessed by Drosselmeyer’s goddaughter Clara.

Randolph’s more magical interpretation of the story for her dancers is a refl ection of how she said she feels about the season and the Nutcracker’s role in the holidays.

“There is a magic in the Nutcracker and the season that all people embrace and long for. (The ballet) allows us to celebrate that magic in a very special way,” she said.

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