Holiday concert? Silent night is safer

There was no winter concert at Cedar Wood Elementary this year and no singing of any holiday songs, in any tradition.

Families instead were welcomed two weeks ago to a "Fall Concert" that featured songs about character development with titles such as "Responsible" and "It Starts With Me."

A message in the program from the principal, David Jones, explained, "This year our music celebrates the power we each have to make good choices."

The evening struck some parents as an attempt by public-school administrators to avoid all controversy during a season fraught with religious, cultural and constitutional peril.

Even parents who said they aren't religious said they felt like they and their children were missing out on one of the best parts of the holiday season — the festive music.

"There was a conspicuous absence of the recognition of what time of year it was," said John Hebert, whose two daughters attend the school. "Not even 'Jingle Bells.' " Cedar Wood, located near Mill Creek in the Everett School District, might be forgiven for treading carefully in the holiday season. The district was sued in June 2006 for refusing to allow the H.M. Jackson High School wind ensemble to perform "Ave Maria" at graduation because it was deemed too religious for a school event.

A U.S. District Court judge in July sided with the school district, but the Rutherford Institute, a conservative legal organization that defends religious freedom, says it will appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"It's not separation of church and state. It's political correctness run amok," said John Whitehead, an attorney for the institute.

Administrators must sign off

Music teachers in the Everett School District say they must submit their concert programs to school administrators for approval. Some Jackson High School choir students say that they've had to fight to have anything recognizably "Christmassy" included in this year's holiday performances.

But teachers in other districts also sigh deeply when asked how they observe the season. Some do nothing, out of sensitivity toward their students' different backgrounds and circumstances. Others embrace the expanded, multicultural options and add Hanukkah and Kwanzaa candles to Christmas trees and the singing of secular songs like "Frosty the Snowman."

School administrators say they strive for a balance between sacred and secular music and activities at the holidays, but they acknowledge that the controversy over religious material may lead some staff members to avoid the season, and religious references, altogether.

"As a public agency, we have a role to keep that balance, but we don't want to overreact, either," said Karst Brandsma, Everett deputy superintendent.

Lurking just below many school administrators' upbeat descriptions of balance and inclusion around the holidays is some music teachers' fears that the whole Western European canon of sacred music that includes Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" will be banned from public schools because of its religious nature.

"This is about much more than Christmas," said Janet Hitt, a former choir director at Jackson High School who now teaches music at Forest View Elementary. "I can give up Christmas. I can't give up the whole history of Western music. There's a whole tradition that's being censored."

God at graduation?

Before "Ave Maria," there was "Up Above My Head," a Negro spiritual that repeats the refrain "There must be a God somewhere" six times. Elvis recorded a version substituting "heaven" for "God." Gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe performed a version that substituted the word "joy."

The Jackson High School choir, led by Hitt, performed the original version of the song at graduation in June 2005. Toni Reading, a Mill Creek resident whose son was one of eight valedictorians honored that night, said the overtly religious hymn, with its repetition of "God," ruined the ceremony for her family.

"It had no place at graduation. This was a celebration of what these children had achieved. God had nothing to do with it," she said.

Reading, who describes herself as a humanist and nonbeliever, complained to the school district. She said the district promised to tighten its oversight and remind staff of its policies regarding balance in public performances.

Her reaction would have been different, she said, if the venue were a holiday concert, not a graduation ceremony.

"When I go to a winter concert, I expect a celebration of different cultures, including Christmas. And I can choose to go. Walking out on your son's graduation is not an option."

The Everett School District policy, like that of most districts in the county, allows for musical presentations with a religious theme if they are presented in a "neutral, nondevotional manner ... and are accompanied by comparable artistic works of a nonreligious nature."

There weren't enough other selections to provide the needed balance, according to the district. On the first day of school the following September, Hitt said she received a "Letter of Direction" from Brandsma reminding her of the district's policy.

Brandsma said the district decided that graduation music in the future would be only secular because there were too few selections to balance a religious work.

Vicki Nurre, whose daughter Kathryn brought the "Ave Maria" suit, was in the audience for the 2005 winter concert, which followed the "Up Above My Head" controversy. She said the band and choir were under strict guidelines about what they could and couldn't perform.

In the past, the band played a medley of Christmas songs and invited the audience to sing along.

That year, she said, music students were told there would be no singalong.

Vicki Nurre is a professional flute player and music teacher who shares Hitt's belief that the history of Western civilization includes Christianity and devotional music. If the school district prohibits all sacred music at some performances, including Negro spirituals, "what's left?" she asked. "Show tunes?"

"It's not about the Christian faith. It's about censorship."

Inclusive approach

At Edmonds Elementary School, Becky Trepp is of the embrace-the-diversity approach to the holidays. Her reading shelf is lined with books from several different holiday traditions. A shelf at the front of the room has both a Christmas tree and a menorah.

The children learn how Christmas is celebrated in Germany and in Mexico. She talks about the common elements of the different winter holidays — family, light, gifts and festive food.

"When I first started teaching, it was at a really diverse school. I wanted all my kids to feel that whatever their tradition, they were included," Trepp said.

Harriet Fuji, a parent volunteer, kneels among the kindergarteners who are using best-guess spelling to write out Kwanzaa and Hanukkah on their drawings of candles.

Fuji grew up on an American military base in Japan. Her dad is Japanese American, her mom Japanese. Asked about the multicultural approach to the holidays in her daughter's classroom, she said, "I love it. I grew up in an international atmosphere. I much prefer that we open our minds to different people who do different things."

Sticking with snowmen

In another part of the school, Rose Maxwell helps her third-grade students assemble calendars they've decorated with their own artwork. The children will give the calendars as gifts to their families when they leave for winter break.

Maxwell is one of the teachers who sighs deeply at the mention of the holidays. There is no menorah or Kwanzaa candles in her room, though handsome watercolor snowmen line the hall outside her door.

On the calendar, the children have illustrated January/February with hand-drawn hearts. September/October is illustrated with a pumpkin. For November/December, Maxwell helped her students scrunch plastic wrap over wet silver acrylic paint and a pastel watercolor base. The effect is like looking out through frosted glass, but it is also, pointedly, not a Christmas tree.

When a visitor asks two girls at a back table why their teacher chose the icy image for December, they answer as if any idiot could see.

"It's abstract!" they explain impatiently.

Maxwell said she avoids more obvious symbols of Christmas, not because they assume all her students come from one religious background, but because many of her students are from single-parent families. She worries about adding stress to their lives in the form of idealized holiday images.

"We're a diverse culture, and we're becoming more and more diverse. I don't think it's right to impose a holiday on anyone," she said, adding, "These kids have enough demands on them already."

Joy to the community

The choir room at Evergreen Middle School jumps with festive music. Choir director Shelley Logan sits at the piano as two-dozen students pantomime their way through "Island Noel," a Caribbean Christmas song, which they embellish with the motions of waves, scuba diving and palm trees.

The class sprints through a medley of 23 Christmas songs in three minutes that includes "Joy to the World" and "The First Noel." They sing a Jewish folk song and a Russian sleigh song.

Like other teachers in the Everett School District, Logan has reviewed all of her selections with her principal and explained her educational goals. There are musical reasons behind her choices, she said, as well as cultural and seasonal ones.

Her choir regularly performs in the community and at this time of year visits assisted-living homes and Alzheimer's care centers. When asked if they perform traditional carols at these venues, she says, "Absolutely. What other kind of music do they know?"

In the presence of these swaying, frequently smiling teens, one feels music's power to unite and uplift — and that the holiday season is alive and well. Logan said she has never had a complaint about the content of her programs and, on the contrary, often hears how much the community "likes what we do."

"It's all about balance, about presenting all different kinds of music. When you stay balanced, you're going to appeal to everyone," she said.

But for every teacher who seeks balance and embraces cultural diversity, there are those like Darin Faul, director of the nationally recognized Mountlake Terrace jazz band, who largely avoids reference to the holidays in his winter concerts. He said his students come from different backgrounds and beliefs, and he wants to be sensitive "to who's sitting in the chair."

One year, in a nod to the season, his band played both Duke Ellington's and Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite."

"That was great," he said, but it didn't take his students where he wanted them to go musically.

Last year's winter concert was called "Power, Protest and Perception" and had no recognizable Christmas music. Parents complained.

This year, the band will play one Christmas song, "Sleigh Ride."

Faul does this knowing that the community likes to hear holiday music at this time of year.

So will anyone complain? he was asked.

"My mom," he said.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com