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Composer Notes:

In the late spring/early summer of 2018, I was approached by Alton Accola to write an a cappella arrangement of a Christmas song to close out a Worldwide Holiday Special he was working on to be broadcast on YouTube as a part of his Behind The Mic channel. It was to be hosted by Cheryl Bentyne, of the Manhattan Transfer, and would features vocal groups from 9 countries including Slovenia, the Philippines, Denmark, Sweden, France, England, Brazil, Canada, and the United States.

 

The final number, Christmas Time Is Here, was performed by 35 of the vocalists with Ms. Bentyne singing the lead. It was produced in a manner similar to the Eric Whiteacre virtual choirs. The vocalists recorded their parts to a click track and then sent them to our mixing engineer, Chris White, who put the audio together. They also recorded a video of their performance which was then sent to our videographer, Michael Swedberg, who created the whole look of the Holiday Special. It was a remarkable experience and one that I thoroughly enjoyed working on from beginning to end.

 

Vince Guaraldi’s and Lee Mendelsen’s Christmas Time Is Here is one of my favorite holiday pieces of music and forever linked to memories of watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as a child. I never dreamed that I would have the opportunity to write my own arrangement of the song, not to mention having a member of a vocal group that has had such a major influence on my musical life sing the lead. You can watch the whole special on Behind the Mic here: Worldwide Holiday Special.

Purchase Sheet Music:

Christmas Time Is Here SSAATTBB + Solo

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