Donna Rhodenizer provides elementary music teachers and voice teachers with some of the best Christmas music for elementary music students, choirs and solo vocal performers. Donna has created a Christmas song collection that includes the songs, narrations, script and costume and staging suggestions for an all-school Christmas concert. Donna's three decades of experience staging school concerts is very evident in the pleasant variety of songs and the simple, yet effective, script and staging provided in this songbook.
In addition to Christmas songs, Donna has included alternate secular winter holiday songs so concerts can be all-inclusive and give the K-6 elementary music teacher many options when creating their elementary school Christmas or winter concert. Santa, presents, snow, winter, toys, hope, joy, peace and love are all gift-wrapped for the music teacher in a delightful combination of songs in a variety of skill levels from first year students through grade 6.
Reproducible pages include
- Student vocal parts
- Lyric sheets
- Script for narrator/M.C. to introduce each song.
Permission is granted for all songs to be copied for student and choir use.
The director and accompanist are provided with complete piano/director scores for all songs, complete with guitar chords.
The script and narrations included are in English. (French translations are available on request from Red Castle Publishing). The individual narrations can be mixed and matched to create complete flexibility of programming order.
Elementary music teachers will find the variety in this collection a great source of Christmas songs for the general music classroom as well as more advanced choir ensembles and older elementary music students. The music is written in the correct vocal range for elementary music students. The lyrics are age-appropriate and the music supports the elementary music education and curriculum outcomes expected in the general elementary music classroom.
Nine (of 11) songs have French lyrics, with both seasonal Christmas holiday song lyrics and secular winter holiday concert song options. Two songs feature handbells, and one song includes a simple percussion part.
Song titles in both English and French: - It's Christmas Time/It's Winter Time, Noël s'en vient/Hiver s'en vient
- Father Christmas/Père Noël
- Christmas A to Z/Winter A to Z, L'alphabet de Noël/L'alphabet d'hiver
- Sing "Gloria !"/ Christmas Pudding, Chante, "Gloria!"/Les bas de Noël
- Star Above, Étoile du ciel
- Mister Santa I've Been Good, Père Noël jétais gentil
- One Small Voice, Une seule voix
- Waiting Patiently for Santa, J'attends Père Noël
- Deo (English and French)
Titles in English only: - Huron Carol,
- Rap it Up to Go
Handbell selection: The songs in this collection have been recorded in two versions: the full performance track plus the instrumental accompaniment track. The tracks are available in two full CDs (English and French) as well as MP3 downloads for individual songs. Exceptions are Joyful Bells, an instrumental handbell piece, Huron Carol which has only English vocals recorded (no French) and "Rap it Up to Go", a rap which is not recorded.
"It's Christmas Time" is a great addition to the Donna Rhodenizer collection of songbooks that every elementary music teacher, regular classroom teacher and voice teacher can use as a resource to support the music education and concert needs of their students.
