As it reaches 7 p.m. on Thursday, December 20, the lights in the Diane and David B. Heller Auditorium dim and the voices of the audience grow quiet. Then, almost fifty Upper School students who are members of Special Chorus enter in lines, holding white candles in their hands while they walk down the aisles, singing a soft melody. They make their way onto the bleachers on the stage, lining up in rows as the volume of their song increases.

“Eatnemen Vuelie” was the first of many numbers in the annual Winter Choral Concert, also known as “Vespers.” This number was used as an entrance in a way that was very different from years past.

Although Vespers does not take place until December, the planning for it starts much earlier in the year. The new Upper School Choir Director Emma Castaldi and Middle School Choir Director Robert Denien met during the summer to figure out what they wanted Vespers to look like.

“As a new teacher you want to keep up with traditions and expectations of the students and the audience, so a lot of that was me just learning from him and the music department, and learn what Vespers is,” Castaldi said. “What it sounds like is that it’s this really beautiful high-quality concert of music, but it kind of has room for anything.”

With this observation, Castaldi took the opportunity to make changes towards the winter concert. “Ms. Castaldi really got creative with Vespers this year,” sophomore Bella Charfoos, member of Grape Jam and Special Chorus, said. “She had a ton of new ideas and I think they turned out really cool and unique.”

Sophomore and Special Chorus member Ava Ori agreed. “Vespers was definitely different than years past,” Ori said. “It was so fun to be a part of it.”

Castaldi analyzed the parts of the concert that could be improved and adjusted them accordingly. One of the ways in which she made changes was in transitions from song to song. In between the choral pieces, there were Upper School students as interlude singers, so there wasn’t silence or solely students speaking during transitions.

Castaldi said, “This year we wanted to be more thoughtful about how pieces might flow together in a way that’s not just by grade.”

While students shuffled on and off the on-stage bleachers, and other students made their way into formation for the next number, individual students, and some small groups, too, by the microphone at the front of the stage, directing the audience’s attention.

One of these soloists was Charfoos, who sang “One Perfect Moment,” a song from the musical “Bring it On.” “It was so much fun to do a solo,” Charfoos said. “It was such a unique opportunity for me because I had never done something like that in Vespers before.”

“Their purpose is to show the individual talent of the choir and show that, even though we sing in mass groups of people, there are really cool individual singers in the group,” Castaldi said. “It’s also some entertainment while we are moving people around.”

Before Castaldi began teaching at Parker, Vespers was organized and run by the previous Choir Director, Sunnie Hikawa, and with a change of teachers, the students noticed a change in teaching styles.

“They are both really great in their own ways,” Charfoos said about Castaldi and Hikawa. “I think that Ms. Castaldi’s style of teaching is more catered to the group that she has on that specific day and she is really on top of everything.”

Ori agrees. “Ms. Castaldi really makes every member of the choir feel like a part of the team,” Ori said. “Which creates such a fun dynamic in rehearsals.”

Castaldi also changed the process to include more of the students’ perspectives.. “It turned out to be a lot of student involvement, so a lot of students offering their opinion about the music and what the theme should be, about how it should look on stage, about how we should present out music,” Castaldi said. “From there we just got creative.”

A significant change to this year’s Vespers was a Vespers Planning Committee that worked with Castaldi Vespers. Called the “Student Hype Committee” by Castaldi, this group of Upper School students met with Castaldi and worked with her to publicize Vespers through the Instagram account, help with the program, assist with planning the reception, and more.

“We’ve always wanted students to be a little more involved,” Denien said. “It was just a nice way for students who were interested to get more involved.”  

Additionally, not only was this year’s Vespers a change for the Upper School, but there were also changes in the Middle School. In previous years, the Middle School choirs had been split up by grade, singing in a co-ed group, but this year, the seventh and eighth-grade girls sang together, and the seventh and eighth-grade boys sang together.

“It’s awkward sometimes in Middle School when voices are developing and changing to have girls and guys in the same room, so I was excited when Ms. Castaldi was hired because she had Middle School experience,” Denien said. “My plan was to try and do what a lot of middle schools do, which is to separate the kids by gender…It allowed the kids to get to know their own voices in really nice way.”