Malvern’s Annual Christmas Band Concert

Malvern has another successful Christmas concert with the help of Mr. Emanuel Del Pizzo and his talented students.

Even with an unusual schedule and a smaller group, the band concert was still a success. 

The band concert took place right before Christmas break, and it was a wonderful opportunity to see the God Band and the band perform.

“[The God Band] started off the concert with two Christmas songs, ‘Mary Did You Know?’ and ‘Heaven Everywhere,’ which I thought were well received,” Colin Campbell, a member of the God Band said.

After the God Band opened, the band played, and did remarkably well, including solos from different instruments such as the piano.

“The concert went very well, and I think the audience really enjoyed it, our final performance for the Upper School band was a kind of punk rock version of “Jingle Bells,” which was really fun, [the band nailed it], and the audience seemed to really enjoy it,” Mr. Del Pizzo, Malvern Prep’s music director, and curriculum coordinator said.

This concert was made possible by the hard work of its students and director, even with a different practice schedule than previous years.

“The preparation this year was a little bit different due to the term schedule. A lot of guys had to give up their free time and practiced during community time twice a week to stay prepared when they did not have class that term. There’s a lot of work involved, and we have basically prepared since September to make sure the concert went smoothly,” DelPizzo said.

Scheduling wasn’t the only challenge the band faced this year, there were also significantly less members than in previous years.

“[The band] was very small this year, possibly due to COVID or the scheduling, but we used to have twenty-five to thirty guys in band, and this year the Upper School had sixteen members, which was the smallest band I have had in my twenty-three years here,” DelPizzo said. 

The members worked really hard to prepare for the show, and did not let scheduling or smaller numbers stop them from putting on a great show.

“All of them just love doing this, they practice for a long time, we rent tuxedos, it looks really classy, and having people come out and see [the show] really makes all the difference,” DelPizzo said.

The Malvern Band concert has had an annual fall concert along with an annual spring concert that Malvern students really enjoy, and they perfect their performance in the show through lots of hard work and determination.