Holiday cheers are all around us, especially at EC with upcoming performances from the fine arts department in time for the holiday season.

EC students who are lovers of music could look forward to the upcoming performance, “The Sounds of Winter” by the South Bay Youth Orchestra on Dec.11 at 7 p.m. at Marsee Auditorium.

William Doyle, director of the Youth Orchestra, said the concert will play great classical music with a holiday flare to bring out the holiday cheer.

Music from far away

There are at least five major pieces in this concert, one of the pieces being “Bacchanale,” which is a “wild piece,” Doyle said.

“It starts very soft with the flute melody and strings playing together,” Doyle said. “The piece gets louder and faster until the very end when you hear a Middle Eastern, Arabic sounding melody to give the feeling of a far away exotic place.”

Some special features in the concert will feature soloists in some of the pieces, including “Piano Concerto,” Doyle, said.

“It’s very energetic, very happy, it’s upbeat and it moves from one melody to the next,” Jessica Lin, piano soloist said.

Christmas cheer is here

Some traditional Christmas songs are composed in a new way to make it more interesting, Doyle said, especially the closing piece, “Carol of the Bells.”

“As the piece goes on, you’ll hear Green Sleeves and Silent Night. You’ll hear things worked in with the traditional piece,” Doyle said.

Music lovers could also look forward to the upcoming performance of the Chorale/ Concert Choir and the Women’s Choir in “A Choral-ful Christmas” Dec. 18 at 8 p.m. at Marsee Auditorium.

Johanna Nachef, director of both choirs, said the concert will give the audience a “wonderful diversity of styles, a journey through music from different periods and it also shows off the marvelous talent of the choral singers we have with the three vary choral groups.”

One of the pieces Ashley Stanbury, vocal performance major, looks forward to is “Lux Aurumgue.”

“The music is very eerie and it’s very different,” Stanbury said. “There’s all kinds of different harmonies that are layered over each other and it just sounds wonderful.”

Nachef said that they’re going to also do a collection of Shakespeare poems set to music.

“It’s a lovely combination of voices,” Nachef said. “It starts as four vocal parts and breaks into sixteen vocal parts.”

“The concert will also feature a few solo singers and instrumentalists to highlight their talents and showcase their performance abilities,” Nachef said.

The closing piece “The Christmas Garland,” features three soloists who sing the part of the “Three Kings,” Nachef said.

Fred Kim, one of the soloists in the “Three Kings,” said that “Christmas Garland” is like an eclectic mix of traditional Christmas music.

Celebrating dedication

EC students who enjoy music and dance may also appreciate the upcoming performance Oui, Geometer II by the EC dance ensemble in “Celebrate!” Dec. 3-5.

“We’re going to be performing modern dance, jazz, hip-hop and a blues type of modern dance…just a variety of different things,” Bernice Boseman, dance director, said. “There’s something for everyone, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, it’ll make somebody happy.”

“The theme is ‘celebrate’,” Judith Kain, dance major, said. “We’re celebrating Ms. Boseman’s thirtieth year here at EC and we’re pulling dances from the archives that she’s done over the years.”

Boseman said that what’s fun about this show is that each performance is picked by the students, the faculty and staff.

One of the oldest dance numbers to be performed in the program is “Big Spender,” which goes back to 1976, Boseman said.

Some special features in the program are solo dancers in some of the featured numbers such as “Blues According to Ray,” a Gospel piece, and “Patsy Cline,” Boseman said.

Keenon Hooks, dance major, looks forward to “What About Us,” the dance number that closes the show.

“That’s my favorite because I feel that it has the most emotions,” Hooks said. “We’re acting and we have all these emotions in every movement- it’s powerful along with the music.

“Most of all, this performance is to just have fun and celebrate,” Kain said.