Many Purdue students and faculty are aware of the Purdue Christmas Show that is held every year in Elliott Hall of Music in early December by Purdue Musical Organizations (PMO).
This year, the Christmas show is entirely virtual. This will be the first year in 87 years that the Christmas Show will not be a live event. The Purdue Christmas Show typically consists of four live shows and three days of taping for the PBS recording of the show. I was in my first Christmas Show during my freshman year in December of 2017, and this will be my final Christmas Show as a senior.
I must preface this by saying how grateful I am to PMO for making this year possible. Unbelievable amounts of money were given so that we could have as normal of a semester as possible, and I'm thankful for all the work put into making the Christmas Show possible. Typically the Purduettes rehearse daily and are booked almost every weekend in the fall semester for local performances and roadshows. We sacrificed that this year for our safety and the safety of others. It would have been so much easier for PMO to have said, "Oh well, there's always next year!" But this organization wanted to give us one last Christmas Show to follow through with tradition--we're very sentimental in PMO.
As a member of the Purduettes, I attended a vocal/audio recording session in Loeb Theater in late October. We performed 2 songs, a ballad and a bop wearing our singing masks, face shields, and Christmas sweaters. It was the strangest performance I've ever given. I stood six feet away from my Sisters in Song, and I couldn't even hear the beautiful music we were making. It was a good deal of trial and error, and our director critiqued our blend after each separate recording. It's nearly impossible to find blend after rehearsing outside for an entire semester.
In the spring of this year, I would never have imagined Christmas Show occurring any differently than it always has. I would never have imagined myself performing outside to an imaginary audience. I would never have imagined wearing a mask between takes and being unable to actually sing during our video recording session. But all of these things happened. We did our vocal recording a few weeks before the visual recording, and our director played our vocal recording aloud so that we could hear it and lip sync while filming.
There were lots of tears before and after the Purduette recording session. As a senior, I was especially saddened knowing that I would never perform in another Christmas Show. After all, this is the event that we would normally be working toward the entire fall semester. The visual recording evening felt exceptionally long in the heat with the sun beating on us as we shifted back and forth in our character heels, trying desperately to relieve the pain. But I honestly had missed those heels. I'm also thankful that we were able to debut our new dresses for this performance!
Although this semester has been incredibly different from the previous ones, I'm so grateful to have been able to return to campus (even if temporarily) and continue doing what I love the most: singing with my Sisters in Song. I couldn't have done it without all of PMO, really. If anyone had slipped up when following the Purdue Pledge, our entire semester of rehearsals would have been canceled. But because every person in PMO followed through with their commitment to the Purdue Pledge, we were able to have the most normal semester possible during this strange time!
This year, the Christmas show is entirely virtual. This will be the first year in 87 years that the Christmas Show will not be a live event. The Purdue Christmas Show typically consists of four live shows and three days of taping for the PBS recording of the show. I was in my first Christmas Show during my freshman year in December of 2017, and this will be my final Christmas Show as a senior.
I must preface this by saying how grateful I am to PMO for making this year possible. Unbelievable amounts of money were given so that we could have as normal of a semester as possible, and I'm thankful for all the work put into making the Christmas Show possible. Typically the Purduettes rehearse daily and are booked almost every weekend in the fall semester for local performances and roadshows. We sacrificed that this year for our safety and the safety of others. It would have been so much easier for PMO to have said, "Oh well, there's always next year!" But this organization wanted to give us one last Christmas Show to follow through with tradition--we're very sentimental in PMO.
As a member of the Purduettes, I attended a vocal/audio recording session in Loeb Theater in late October. We performed 2 songs, a ballad and a bop wearing our singing masks, face shields, and Christmas sweaters. It was the strangest performance I've ever given. I stood six feet away from my Sisters in Song, and I couldn't even hear the beautiful music we were making. It was a good deal of trial and error, and our director critiqued our blend after each separate recording. It's nearly impossible to find blend after rehearsing outside for an entire semester.
In the spring of this year, I would never have imagined Christmas Show occurring any differently than it always has. I would never have imagined myself performing outside to an imaginary audience. I would never have imagined wearing a mask between takes and being unable to actually sing during our video recording session. But all of these things happened. We did our vocal recording a few weeks before the visual recording, and our director played our vocal recording aloud so that we could hear it and lip sync while filming.
There were lots of tears before and after the Purduette recording session. As a senior, I was especially saddened knowing that I would never perform in another Christmas Show. After all, this is the event that we would normally be working toward the entire fall semester. The visual recording evening felt exceptionally long in the heat with the sun beating on us as we shifted back and forth in our character heels, trying desperately to relieve the pain. But I honestly had missed those heels. I'm also thankful that we were able to debut our new dresses for this performance!
Although this semester has been incredibly different from the previous ones, I'm so grateful to have been able to return to campus (even if temporarily) and continue doing what I love the most: singing with my Sisters in Song. I couldn't have done it without all of PMO, really. If anyone had slipped up when following the Purdue Pledge, our entire semester of rehearsals would have been canceled. But because every person in PMO followed through with their commitment to the Purdue Pledge, we were able to have the most normal semester possible during this strange time!
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