Throughout the Christmas Season, members of the Fuqua School junior and senior bands have been spreading Christmas cheer throughout Farmville. It began with Eli Hall performing solos at the Piedmont Senior Resources’ Senior Santa Kickoff on Thursday, Nov. 16. Anyone in the shopping center of the Piedmont Senior Resources’ offices could hear Eli’s tenor sax filling the air with Christmas music. Then as the Fuqua Falcons were vying for the state football title on Nov. 17, other band members stayed behind to perform for the Christmas tree lighting in Farmville’s town plaza. It was a well-attended event and the band dazzled with a collection of upbeat Christmas songs.

On Sunday, Dec. 3, both the junior and senior bands along with the varsity cheerleaders marched in the Farmville Christmas Parade. As one of the host bands for the event, the Fuqua school band shined as middle school and upper school students banded together to put on a great performance of “Sleigh Ride”. On Thursday, Dec. 7, Emily Erickson, Ashley Handy, and Ireland Seagle represented Fuqua School by performing at Centra Southside Community Hospital’s annual Christmas tree lighting. They performed songs as part of a program that takes place in the main lobby of the hospital each year. Both the Lower School Christmas Program and Opus were on Thursday evening of Dec. 7.

Both programs highlighted the quality of music education at Fuqua School. Students performed a collection of traditional Christmas carols and poems. Students impressed with not only their beautiful singing but also their memorization of “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “T’was a Night Before Christmas”. The fourth-grade Recorder class and fifth-grade band class wowed with instruments that they had only began playing a few months ago. The program also featured fourth-grader Corbin Tinsley on mandolin, fifth-grader Marina Morris on violin, and fifth-grader Ella Estes on bells. Another new addition to the lower school program was Toni Puckett masterfully accompanying the students on a new piano donated by Matt and Lauren McCarty.

This year’s Opus entitled “The Colors of Christmas” featured vocal solos by Maggie Encarnacion, Andrew Cao and Warren Dabney. All Fuqua School band students in grades sixth through twelfth entertained throughout the program starting with a grand entrance by the junior band, senior band and varsity cheerleaders and ending with a spectacular performance of jazz music by the senior band. The Fuqua Players entertained by performing the play “The Great Christmas Strike” and the program ended by students Briana Gee, Elizabeth Hall, Sarah Storm and Katherine White leading the audience in “Silent Night”. From the ambience from the class Christmas trees, the beauty of traditional Holiday music performed, laughter provided through comedy, Opus delighted the audience throughout.