The Music Studio

On Sunday, December 6, The Music Studio Kids–a performing troupe composed of The Music Studio’s private piano students–participated in one of the Capital Region’s most popular holiday traditions: The Albany Symphony Orchestra’s “Magic of Christmas,” at the Palace Theater. This beloved show is now ten years old, and The Music Studio Kids have been featured performers from the very beginning.

This year, they began with a medley of Christmas carols for voice and Orff instruments and then joined the Albany Symphony Orchestra in an intricate and rousing holiday music medley that incorporated the whole orchestra, as well as the “Orffchestra.” Noel Liberty, founder and director of the school and the performing troupe, had commissioned these both of these pieces from composer Paul Gerike, since she found no holiday music composed for as large and skilled group of Orff players as The Music Studio Kids. Gerike also composed the vocal medley The Music Studio Kids performed later in the program, when the stage was cleared of xylophones, glockenspiels, and the like, to make room for an extended song-and-dance sequence. Abby Todd contributed the choreography and trained the group, which included both dancers and dance novices.