Whitney Gulden
Reporter
“The holiday assembly used to be called ‘Cacophony of Sound’, don’t ask me how to spell it,” Attila Levai said. Mr. Levai has been teaching at NCHS for 36 years now, and his first year teaching was also the first year of the now traditional holiday assembly.
“Ultimately the holiday assembly is a showing of mostly student musical talents,” he said. “Over the years it has mutated into different things, and different forms.” Every year the holiday assembly presents students with a mix of old traditions such as the Jazz Band’s classic Jingle Bells and new performances in the ever-varying music choices students work hard all semester to learn.
Band teacher Mr. Cranston has been teaching at NCHS for 12 years. This is the year he describes as, “the dirty dozen year.” For this landmark he said, “The band will play Farandole and a Jersey Boys medley this year. The Jazz band will be performing a swing version of the March from the Nutcracker’s Ballet, Santa Baby and Jingle Bells.”
The band’s choice Farandole is a piece from Bizet’s music for the play L’Arlesienne set in southern France. The Jersey Boys medley is, of course, from the Tommy and Grammy award winning Broadway musical.
Through the years the holiday assembly has gone through an evolution to bring it to its current state. Sometimes it is the same performance for a few years, then is completely different for years after. Mr. Cranston said, “When I started it was just the band and The Troubadours and the Madrigals. About ten years ago the Jazz band came in, then the orchestra.”
“Then about four years ago dance came in. Unfortunately we don’t have a dance program at the school anymore so that won’t happen.”
Mr. Cranston said his most memorable performance was “My first year, because it was the first year. The band had a lot of players who were pretty good. We played the Lion King and it sounded great.”
“One year there was a faculty sing a long, a little chaotic, but we did it anyways and it turned out ok,” Mr. Levai said of old holiday assemblies. “And there were even skits from the English department for a few years.”
No doubt, the center of the holiday assembly has been the rock n’ roll, high energy, much anticipated set by Mr. Levai’s band The Troubadours. “The last five or six years the front of the stage turned into a giant mosh pit so we had to worry about that a bit,” Mr. Levai said of performing on stage for students.
However, due to the growing size of groups performing in the holiday assembly there will be stage extensions in place, preventing any mosh pit from occurring. “Last year the assembly was broken up into two because the school size grew,” Mr. Levai said. Two assemblies will also take place this year as the school grew with the record-breaking freshman class that pushed the student body past 1300 students.
Sadly, with the retirement of member Jerry Hastava from the NCHS science department last year Levai said, “I don’t think [The Troubadours] will be playing this year. I think it will be the first time in 36 years we won’t perform…except for a snow out about twenty years ago.”
While the student body will greatly miss The Troubadours’ legendary performance this year, Mr. Levai said, “This year they will have to start new traditions. There will be a new final act.” As to what that final act will be, we will have to wait until the 36th holiday assembly to see.
