Edison High School’s music students welcomed the holidays with sing-a-grams and play-a-grams, sharing their art with the school. Students prepared holiday songs to perform for students who ordered them for certain classes, and they delivered them the week of winter break. An annual tradition for the choir, sing-a-grams have a reputation of bringing excitement to both the performers and the recipients. Although the Tri-M Music Honor Society only started play-a-grams this year, the event still fostered enjoyment in the participants. 

Sing-a-grams and play-a-grams provided students the freedom to organize their own music, promoting creativity and independence in the musicians. President of the Choir Student Board Lauren Dick ‘22 said, “I love sing-a-grams because they gave us the opportunity to organize a fundraiser and compose our own arrangements.” As a student-run fundraiser, the event embraced creative liberty as students dispersed holiday spirit through the classrooms. 

Secretary of the Tri-M Student Board Aleena Cheriyan ‘22, expressed similar feelings. “My favorite part about play-a-grams was being able to spread holiday cheer around the whole school and seeing people smile,” she said. Throughout the week, Cheriyan and Elijah Agabao ‘22 spread this spirit, performing a Christmas medley on the clarinet. Cheriyan expressed that this cheer compensated for the exhaustion of performing numerous times consecutively. These short performances gratified students with uplifting performances and allowed the performers to take a break from assignments as well. 

Although tiring, the event allowed the performers to have fun with the music. Dick spent the day singing White Christmas with Kaeli Knott ‘23 while playing guitar, an experience shared by many. Gabriela Engholm ‘23 sang an acapella arrangement of “All I Want for Christmas is You” with Lawrence Chan ‘22, Matthew Hofstra ‘22, Christian Lee ‘23, and Robyn Nemeth ‘23.

“My favorite part about sing-a-grams was the complete thrill of running through the hallways to get through all the orders on time and singing completely out of breath,” said Engholm.  She performed around fifty times.

The performers encourage students to participate in sing-a-grams and play-a-grams because it allows students to display their talent and spend time doing what they love with their friends. Cheriyan hopes that more students will participate in play-a-grams since they only had a few groups. The performers also added that it did not require excessive practicing on top of schoolwork. The event will return for Valentine’s Day.