By Devan Sticka
The annual Shafer Fisher Holiday Pop Concert Saturday night featured songs from the films “Elf” and “It’s A Wonderful Life,” along with traditional crowd favorites. The concert included performances by the Muncie Symphony Orchestra, Ball State University Singers and West View Ensemble.
The annual concert features songs from different films each year. This year Muncie Symphony Orchestra’s conductor, Douglas Droste, chose which films to use this year.
“The whole program takes a lot of planning,” Droste said. “I was fortunate to guest conduct the Kansas City Symphony a year ago at this time and they performed It’s A Wonderful Life. I fell in love with it. They performed Elf. I said, ‘Oh, this would be a good fit for Muncie, as well.’”
Director of the Ball State University Singers, Alan Alder, has been with the group for 11 years. The Singers started practicing for this event back in October while also preparing for their October through December shows.
“It’s one of the ways that we as an organization begin the holiday season. It’s also really nice to see so many people from the community come to this event,” Alder said. “That’s significant for as and as well, I think, for the orchestra because this may be the one thing that people come to or bring their kids to, or their families, or whatever, and so this is an opportunity for us to reach a very large sized audience.”
The annual concert has become a tradition for many local families and students from the Ball State community.
“People come to just this concert. They don’t come to anything else, but this is a favorite concert of theirs,” Dostre said. “I like to call it a little bit of Broadway in Muncie because we have the Ball State Singers who are here singing and dancing and it’s a little bit of a variety show. We have the young kids who are coming to sing, as well. So, they look forward to hearing their Christmas tunes.”
Droste has been conducting the Muncie Symphony Orchestra for six years and has included the Singers every year. This year’s new addition is the West View Ensemble made up of students from West View Elementary.
The West View Ensemble director is part of the Muncie Symphony Orchestra board. The group even had the opportunity to sing in the Ball State Centennial concert in early September.
“They’ve been doing a lot of performances around town,” Droste said.
This was just one way to start the holiday season in Muncie. As the Ball State University Singers and West View Ensemble sang loud with Christmas cheer for all to hear, the Muncie Symphony Orchestra backed them up for a great annual Muncie tradition.
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