By Peter Hyle and Christian DiMartino and Sidney Reynolds

For the past eleven years, the choir, orchestra, and band departments at FC have hosted Winter Fantasia. A musical showcase that preforms Christmas carols and tunes, each department puts a lot of time and preparation into their part of the show. Although the preparations are hectic every year, the recent cancellations due to snow have made this year especially stressful.

Each department faces their own specific obstacles in planning their part of the concert.

“A main challenge is that it is very close to the end of our marching band season. We have to get all of our concert bands ready to learn the music, while things like Pep Band, Winter Guard and Winter Percussion are still going on. So it’s a very busy time for us, especially with Winter Fantasia mixed in,” said band director Harold Yankee.

Aside from the demanding schedules, there are more stressful problems that the students and teachers are faced with.

“Our biggest obstacle has been preparing the freshmen and bringing them up to the standards. The music in Winter Fantasia is always very challenging for the freshmen, but they’re fighting harder than most to learn this year’s music,” said orchestra director Doug Elmore.

After over a decade, the directors have adjusted to each other’s eventful schedules.

“We’ve got it down to a system where it works very smoothly. The first few years we had some troublesome details to figure out, but now we basically follow the same pattern each year. We typically always change the pieces of music performed, but we each know what we’re going to do and when,” said choir director Angela Hampton.

There are many songs that will be performed during Winter Fantasia, but there are certain highlights for each director.

“My favorite part in the whole concert is the last song at the very end, where everyone plays and sings together. There are so many students on stage enjoying the same song at the same time. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is just a pleasant piece of music. It’s always been one of my favorite pieces,” said Yankee.

Winter Fantasia is held on Tuesday, Dec. 10 and Thursday, Dec. 12 at 7pm. The box office is opened each night at 6:15pm. The recent snow days have made things more stressful for the students and teachers performing, but everything is still on schedule. There is a silent auction all throughout both nights of Winter Fantasia, and the directors are encouraging people to come early to participate in the final auction. This event is described as FC’s biggest music event of the year.