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Holiday songs and spirits soar
SEISO hosted Hollydaze at the First United Methodist Church of Mt. Pleasant
MT. PLEASANT — The Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra once again filled the First United Methodist Church in Mt. Pleasant with beautiful music as they held their annual Hollydaze concert Saturday.
After a last-minute change in venue from Iowa Wesleyan University’s Chapel for SEISO’s KidSymphony last month, the organization expressed their gratitude to the First United Methodist Church for being so supportive in giving them a place to offer this free community concert.
SEISO Music Director and Conductor Robert McConnell led the symphony orchestra through many holiday favorites like “A Christmas Carol,” “Merry Christmas, Darling,” “It’s Christmas Time,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” while offering nuggets of information to the audience.
“When the piece is going on, you hardly notice that,” McConnell pointed out as he asked musicians playing 16th notes to demonstrate bits of “A Christmas Carol.”
“It’s like the Harry Potter Hedwig owl,” he explained as the audience chuckled. “It creates this feel.”
Throughout the program McConnell continued to dissect bits of the music to not only entertain but engage the audience.
Blair Buffington further engaged the audience as he led not only the programs choir, but attendees in singing “Joy to the World.”
“This next segment of the program is something that involves you and it is graded, all right? So, I am expecting your very best,” Buffington said with a grin as the audience laughed. “This is the audience participation part.”
After giving instructions, Buffington invited the audience to grab the hymnals in front of them to join in singing following an introduction from the orchestra and the children’s choir led by Christine Bergan.
“You will know it is time because I will turn around and you won’t see my behind anymore,” Buffington joked.
Holiday spirits continued to soar as jolly music filled the space, heads bobbed in time, and feet tapped with the music.
According to McConnell, this tradition doesn’t just come together on its own.
He said he commonly comes up with ideas for next year’s concert while performing the current one. Additionally, McConnell says many people go into making this event happen every year.
This year, SEISO has needed to take a slightly different approach as they’ve learned how to function without Iowa Wesleyan University which functioned as a homebase for the organization for many years.
“With the closing of Iowa Wesleyan, we have had to re-examine how operate and a lot of those issues associated with this,” McConnell said. “One of the things I’d say is, we really discovered our strength as an enabling organization.”
“We’re combining with three different choirs here today,” he said. “We allow musicians to have a good quality musical outlet in basically a rural region. Which I can tell you is extremely rare, particularly an orchestra of this quality.”
The evening came together thanks to talent from Mt. Pleasant Chorale, the Ottumwa Area Community Chorus, OACC Children’s Chorus, Kent Keating and Stell Voces from Mt. Mercy University, and members of the community making up the SEISO holiday chorus.
McConnell said that the musicians that make up the SEISO and those singing in the choir are the biggest donors to the organizations as they give of their time and talents for minimal pay.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com
