On Sunday, December 13, at 1:30 pm, the Tri-County Symphonic Band will present a “Family Virtual Christmas Concert” on ORCTV’s Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 36 in Marion, Mattapoisett, and Rochester. The program will also be livestreamed on both the ORCTV and the Tri-County Symphonic Band Facebook pages. This free family concert has been held live and in person for years in the multipurpose auditorium of the Sippican School in Marion.
Fortunately, Music Director Philip Sanborn has found a way to bring the festivities to everyone! Christmas, after all, is a family-centered holiday in our country. Sanborn has designed a virtual program that places the family at the center of the holiday. In addition to archived recordings from the band, individuals from the band and their families have been invited to produce their own music videos that celebrate the holiday. In this spirit and as one of the varied offerings of this concert, the Barrett family of Marion has produced their own video of “Santa Lucia,” the processional folksong that celebrates the mythical saint who brings light to cold and dark Sweden in the winter. “Santa Lucia” is celebrated each year on December 13 in Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia. The holiday includes girls dressed in white dresses with red sashes, and crowns of evergreens and candles on their heads. The father, Justin Barrett, was in charge of recording the video while the mother, Jessica Barrett (the librarian teacher at Sippican School), plays the clarinet, as she does in the Tri-County Symphonic Band. The children, Isaac, 9, a fourth-grader at Sippican, and Eliza, 4, a preschooler, will sing the words in Swedish!
The afternoon will be filled with many holiday favorites as the band and their family members present this delightful family virtual holiday concert. For more information on this concert and how to view and/or livestream the program, please visit www.tricountysymphonicband.org.