UPPER SCHOOL
 ADVENT ARTS EVENING

Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Hickory Campus Auditorium

Concert Program

 
PRELUDE
Savior of the Nations Come  
Honors Ensemble

This Advent hymn is the result of a robust collaboration: a poem written by Ambrose of Milan (late 4th Century), versified into a Lutheran Chorale by Martin Luther, and harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach. The Honors Ensemble gives us just the musical imprint of that centuries-old meditation.
Introduction and Welcome from Chris Campanelli, Arts Director
Prayer, Brad Baggett, Head of School
We are not alone
by Pepper Choplin
Vocation 
Spring and Fall
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
Read by Stella Gustafson
to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Nothing Gold Can Stay 
by Robert Frost, Choral Arrangement by Stephanie Martin; 
Performed by Savannah Wood, Kelly Johnson, Rylan Frazier, Jade Eccles, Elizabeth Burton, Sophie Morris, Zoe Levesque, and Sophie Wayner
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Advent is the season of the seed
adapted from Vigen Guroian, Inheriting Paradise 
Read by Virginia Sanders and Allison Stevens
“At Advent-time, icy snowflakes play timpani on the last leathery leaves that cling to the branches of the young pin oak in the backyard. The year is old and the earth has grown cold. The garden has turned brown and gray; the cornstalks have shrunk and are crouched over like a platoon of crooked old men. The squash vines have shriveled; their rotted fruit drops seeds to the ground…. 
On a chilly overcast Saturday, I wrestle into my mud-caked boots and trudge out to the vegetable garden. I push open the gate and survey a scene of desolateness. Summer’s sensuous celebrants are skeletons and dry bones, I pull up the tomato stakes and the dead vines. I cut down the cornstalks and pile them in a corner of the garden… The perennial beds have lost their raiment, no more wild summer gaiety of bright colors, the dancers are undressed and their feet are frozen in the ground….
What did our Lord say? ‘Except a [seed] of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24 KJV)....’ 
Advent is the season of the seed.”
Advent is a time to let our old used up selves die into the earth like the crumpled cornstalks in the garden. Let the reaper come and cut me down, and I will fall into the ground.
Snowflakes
Vocation
Composer Lane Johnson’s arrangement of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem by the same name provides in sound what Longfellow achieves in the surprise of his poem - a poignant beauty inextricably mixed with grief. The song is an audible groan, characterized by tense harmonies and unresolved cluster chords; their tension and discomfort help bring deeper satisfaction to resolution of the phrase. 
Out of the bosom of the Air,
      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
            Silent, and soft, and slow
            Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
      In the white countenance confession,
            The troubled sky reveals
            The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
            Now whispered and revealed
            To wood and field.
A Better Resurrection 
by Christina Rossetti 
Read by Mae Duenke and Virginia Chiesa 
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.
Hard Times Come Again No More 
Covenant Singers, Accompanied by Eric Franzen
Stephen Foster’s 1854 song calling for his audience to remember the poor becomes more poignant when we recall that God himself was born “outside the door.”  
Kenosis 
Written and read by Ella Shapowal 
 You don’t need to know the definition, 
so long as you know what this word contains:
 the promise of the existence of a humble God.
"A God who lowers Himself without shame.
A God that doesn’t cling to His throne, 
but steps down into skin and hunger and grief.
A God that didn’t stay where he was exalted, 
but comes to where the pain lives.
This isn’t because we have earned it, 
but because love, real love, 
doesn’t hover above; 
it kneels."
Norwegian Lullaby 
arr. Gunnar Eriksson 
Vocation
Gjendinbån
Barnet legges I vuggen ned
Stundom greder og stundom ler
Sove nu, sove nu i Jesu navn
Nesus bevare barnet
Min mor hun tok meg pa sitt fang
Danse med meg frem og tilbake
Danse så, med de små,
Danse så, så skal barnet danse
Gjendinban
Hush my baby, be still, no tears
Sweetly smiling you have no fears
Dreaming child, sleep now so safe in God
Jesus will love all children
My mother held me in her arms
Dancing with me in the meadow.
Dancing, mild, with her child.
Dancing, mild, sweetly, softly dancing.
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree 
arr. Eleanor Daley 
Vocation

Starting with a passing reference to the beloved as the “apple tree” in Song of Solomon, this poem develops a profound meditation on Christ as the fulfillment of all desire, and enriches that meditation through tree imagery spanning from Genesis, through the parables of Jesus, and into the Book of Revelation. 
O Emmanuel 
by Malcolm Guite 
Read by Creed Anderson
 
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands
 
Lo how a rose  
arr. Larry Kerchner 
Upper School Band
Lo How a rose e’re blooming
From tender stem hath sprung
Of Jesse’s lineage coming
As men of old hath sung
It came of flower bright
Amid the cold of winter
When half-spent was the night
Untitled Poem 
by Wendell Berry 
Read by Christopher Albert
The seed is in the ground./Now may we rest in hope/while darkness does its work. 
Mary Had a Baby 
arr. Stacey Gibbs 
Vocation

As is characteristic of African-American spirituals, this song works in a meditative way to draw out the deep consolation of a simple fact - that God himself entered into the same meager conditions as the enslaved. Drawing from this fact a depth of sweetness and sorrow, an intermingling of grief and comfort, and an unwavering affection for the Christ child, this song has been passed along for 150 years, from voice to voice and community to community, until it welled up into the common canon of American song, where it still illuminates the subtle but consequential difference between “away in the manger” and “here in the manger.” 
 
In the Bleak Midwinter 
by Christina Rossetti, arr. John A. Dempsey 
Honors Ensemble
Advent is the season of the seed
adapted from Caryll Houselander 
Read by Addy Anderson
Advent is the season of the seed:
The seed of the world's new life was hidden in Mary.
Like the wheat seed in the earth,
the Glory of God was enshrined in her darkness.
Advent is the season of the secret,
of the growth of Christ, in silence.
It is the season of humility, of longing
Of patience, of darkness, of faith.
Christ's radiance itself is hidden 
in our darkness;
But he is there, growing;
and we cannot help
relating everything, 
literally everything,
to this almost incredible reality.
When the Spirit Soars  
by Philip Sparke 
Upper School Band

Composer’s Note: “When the Spirit soars ‘attempts to capture in music the feeling of extreme happiness, sometimes almost too much to bear, that we all experience at one time or another. Often this happiness can be tinged with sadness (we can cry with joy, after all) and it is this conflict of emotions which this piece describes. There are moments of doubt as the piece progresses, but it ends in undiluted joy’.” (Philip Sparke) 
Isaiah 35:1 -6 
Read by Will Simpson 
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
it shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the LORD,
the majesty of our God. 
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
            and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
Illuminations
by Ryan Meeboer 
Upper School Band

Composer’s note: “Illuminations is a dramatic and rhythmically exciting overture. It is set in three contrasting sections: Ablaze, Glistening, and The Radiance, each with its own character and style, brilliant fanfares, memorable themes and fun energetic rhythms to illuminate the season.”
Isaiah 55: 12-13 
Kelly Johnson 
“For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall break forth into singing,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
    an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
African Noel 
arranged by Victor C. Johnson 
Covenant Singers, Accompanied by Eric Franzen

Beneath the repetitive lyric, this song is a study in syncopation, and a practice in collaboration.
A Song in the Air 
Joel Raney
8th Grade Advanced Choir w/ accompaniment by members of Upper School Drumline and Mr. Eric Franzen
Christmas Joy Medley 
arr. Gary Lanier 
Honors Ensemble 
Christmas Festival  
Upper School Band
Robert W. Smith’s adaptation brings fresh life to Leroy Anderson's "Christmas Festival," a staple of Christmas concert performances for both bands and orchestras.
Wexford Carol 
Honors Ensemble, Vocation, and Community Choir, with Sophie Wayner on piano 
The shepherds’ response to the angelic chorus is the only appropriate attitude towards such a sublime experience - a mix of fear and wonder. In its alteration between major and minor modes, this late medieval Irish carol imparts to us that same sense of awe - a solemnity shot through with joy - and prepares us to receive afresh what “our good God for us has done/in sending His beloved Son.” Thanks for joining us!
Good people all, this Christmas time
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending His beloved Son
With Mary holy we should pray
To God with love this Christmas day
In Bethlehem upon that morn'
There was a blessed Messiah born
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep
Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep
To whom God's angels did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear
"Prepare and go", the angels said
"To Bethlehem, be not afraid
For there you'll find this happy morn'
A princely Babe, sweet Jesus born"
With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went that Babe to find
And as God's angel had foretold
They did our Savior Christ behold
Within a manger He was laid
And by his side the Virgin maid
As long foretold upon that morn'
There was a blessed Messiah born


Performers

List of 5 items.

  • Honors Ensemble

    Lucy Foshay
    Sadie Muck
    Allison Stevens
    w/ Charlotte James accompanying on cello

  • Upper School Band

    Flute
    Lucy Foshay
    Elias Martin
    Evie Wayner

    Oboe
    Elias Martin*

    Violin
    Sara Rodriguez-Amaya
    Sadie Muck

    Clarinet
    Sophie Wayner
    Lucy Foshay*
    Lucas Johnson*

    Alto Saxophone
    Kaleb Estes
    Lucas Johnson

    Tenor Saxophone
    Edward Flick

    Baritone Saxophone
    James Sumhka

    Trumpet
    Dayne Honaker
    Ripley Hutchens

    Trombone
    Allison Stevens
    Kade Metz
    Luke Bewley

    Baritone
    Jesse Gainey

    Cello
    Teo Vailing
    Cole Cook
    Madison Long

    Tuba
    Emilia Jones

    Percussion
    McKinley Pattie
    Angel Rodriguez-Amaya
    Benjamin Rapp
    Drew Pariseau
    Hal Thompson

    *denotes instrument doubler

  • Covenant Singers

    Katherine Albert
    Nadie Annos
    Mae Bentzen
    Ryan Byrne
    Quinn Caminati
    Anna Crowder
    Libby Anne Durrer
    Grace Galie
    Lena Garber
    Ailyn Green
    Silas Hall
    Anne Carter Hutchinson
    James Kipp
    Alexandra McClellan
    Katelyn McNish
    Lucia Platania
    Avery Roberson
    Lilah Saliba
    Virginia Sanders
    Colbie Sansom
    Kayla Santugini
    Olivia Sty
    Bryce Taylor
    Charis Tseng
    Cana Turner
    Zera Vaughan
    Evangeline Walsh
    Vera Welborn
    Sidney Wright

  • Vocation

    Student Accompanist
    Sophie Wayner 

    Soprano
    Zoe Levesque
    Stella Gustafson 
    Ella Watson 
    Kiersten Ring 
    Addy Anderson 
    Charlotte James 
    Savannah Wood 
    Maddie Walsh 
    Calliah Grace O’Brien
    Izzy Boehnke 
     
    Alto 
    Orla Bradley
    Jade Eccles
    Maria Gran
    Adelaide Smith
    Margaret Killian
    Kella Lemcke
    Kelly Johnson
    Sophie Morris
    Elizabeth Burton
    Rylan Frazier 

    Tenor 
    Benny Will 
    Jonathan Olson 
    Chris Albert 
    Sam Gayle 
     
    Bass
    Henry Waldruff 
    Phoenix Maton
    Owen Cullaty
    Alvin Hoffman
    Will Simpson

  • Directors

    Mr. Daniel Warren, Instrumental Music and Vocation
    Ms. Annie Brooks, Middle School Arts and Covenant Singers
    Ms. Kassy Koslowski, Visual Art
    Mrs. Karen Proce, Middle School Art and Photography
    Mr. David Euans, Drumline
    Mr. Christopher Campanelli, Arts Director, Covenant Singers


Special Thanks

Mr. Brad Baggett, Ms. Nikki Shrader, Mr. Spencer Burton, Mrs. Dannon Stock, Mr. Colin Anderson, and the whole Administrative Team for their unflagging support of the Arts at Covenant.
 
Heather Smith, Katelyn Donohue, and the Wingin’ It Podcast team for program and publicity.
 
Mr. Greg Porter and the Maintenance Team for getting us set up.
 
Mr. Eric Franzen for brilliant and lively accompaniment
 
Mr. Ethan Mitchell and his stagecraft crew for lights, sound, and stage. 
 
Mrs. Taylor Hong, Marcela Foshay, Katherine Morris, and the many volunteer parents who fed us and helped decorate!
 
Mr. Patrick Estes and the athletic department for releasing your athletes to be artists tonight.
 
And Jerry King, whose nine years of cultivating the Arts at the Covenant School profoundly shaped our culture and curriculum. His work has sown the seeds that we continue to cultivate now, and the harvest we enjoy remains indebted to him. 


 

Upcoming Arts Events

  • December 10th at 5pm | Upper School Vocation Singers Caroling at the Live Nativity | Birdwood Campus
  • December 11th at 6:15pm | Lower School Christmas Concert
  • February 26-28, 2026 | Upper School Spring Musical, Oklahoma!

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