Elementary Christmas concert features ambitious selections

When Lacee Johnson took over a resurrected elementary music program back in 2021, performing iconic music from Tchaikovsky’s Christmas ballet “The Nutcracker,” and dancing to it too, wasn’t at all on her radar.

But a highlight of the December 19th’s Elementary Christmas Concert, the third and fourth graders combined to put on a truncated version of the classic ballet, set to words and complete with graceful pirouettes in “Dance of the Sugar Plumb Fairy,” the rigid march of toy soldiers coming alive in “March from Act One” and squatting kicks and stomps in “Trepak,” an energetic Slavic folk dance.

It was the most ambitious selection that Johnson has had her students perform in her five years at Cleveland, but she was confident they could pull it off.

“I can throw a little tougher music at them. Now they are getting all those skills from year to year, and they’re improving, so I can give them some harder stuff. The third and fourth graders are a talented group.”

Johnson and company started preparing for the concert back in October. While a snowstorm the night before threatened to postpone the event, school started as normal the next day, and the students got in a rehearsal before the 1:00 p.m. performance.

As usual, there wasn't an available parking spot within blocks of the school, and the new gym was packed, including both sets of bleachers and a couple hundred chairs lined up in front of the stage on the gym floor.

Selections ranged from traditional carols, seasonal pop hits and classic crooner standards, covering winter merrymaking, Santa Claus and holiday nostalgia across genres from folk to rock and rap.

Opening the concert, the Kindergartners sang “What’s in That Stocking,” “Pictures with Santa” and “Christmas Makes Me Sing.”

Next on stage, the first and second graders, combined this year, performed “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a medley of “Christmas is Coming!” “Reindeer on the Roof” and “St. Nick at Night.”

After the third and fourth graders, Clipper Rising Voices, a select group of third, fourth and fifth graders, which started last fall, sang “Sing the Christmas Story” (“We Three Kings” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”) and “Christmas Lullaby Calypso.”

Then it was Christmas rapping with the fifth graders, donned in black ball caps, sang “Rap the Rooftop.” They followed with “Starry Night” (“Silent Night”) and concluded with “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

Wearing Santa Clause hats, the Sixth graders sang “Sleigh Ride,” “On the Road to Bethlehem,” “Holiday Road” (from the Chevy Chase movie “Christmas Vacation”), and, as tradition at Cleveland, concluded with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

Directed by Erik Hermanson, Holiday Jazz gave its last performance of the year, playing as the audience entered the gym, between each set and concluding the concert. Accompanied by the group, senior Vivian Hilfer sang “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

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