The old-fashioned winter concert is alive in well in School District 43, with dozens of schools holding special events for parents and members of the community this week.
But one school, Irvine elementary in Port Coquitlam, a French immersion school, wanted to add an international flair to its annual event and this week traditional holiday tunes were sung in Tagalog, a language from the Philippines, as well as English and French.
"It's a community event that everyone looks forward to, especially the students," said Emmanuel Escueta, a French immersion teacher, whose Grade 2 class participated in two school concerts held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Students were encouraged to dress up in costumes to represent their family's heritage and, in Escueta's class, students also made traditional Philippine paroles, or lanterns, made of paper that they hung to decorate the school.
Below: students play a Christmas song on an angklung by shaking the instrument.
Working with music teacher Eric Oun and another Grade 2 teacher, Chrysso Methot, Escueta taught students to sing songs in his traditional dialect as well as Canada's two official languages. They also played a traditional Philippine instrument called an angklung, which is made of bamboo tubes and makes a resonant sound when shaken, with each instrument having a different pitch.
Some of the students had to take turns with the instrument, which kept them on their toes and attentive when it came time to shake their angklung.
"The children are enjoying the song, they are humming it all day long," he said of "Christmas is Upon Us," which he translated for the students, sang, played and put on a PowerPoint document for students to practise at home.
The students also sang "Angels we Have Heard on High" for the Christmas concert, said Escueta, who grew up in the Philippines and moved to Canada when he was 16.
Principal Darlene Proulx said the teachers worked together to make the concert a success and the winter concert continues to be a highlight of the school year at Irvine even though other schools might hold spring concerts instead or do a different sort of activity, such as a craft fair.
Although this year's school strike cut short the preparation time for the Christmas concert, Escueta said he and his colleagues were still able to pull it all together, mostly out of sheer determination.
"Are we pressured? Of course. At the end, we look at it and we say, 'Wow, we did this together.'"
