The Winter Music Festival began in 1917.
Highlights from New Trier High School’s annual Winter Music Festival. For 96 years, this free concert has provided an opportunity for the New Trier Music Department to share with local residents of all ages a broad selection of popular and seasonal music, showcasing all of the high school’s bands, orchestras, and choirs. Each of the 750 students involved in music ensembles at New Trier will perform during the Festival. This is the Music Department’s annual “gift to the community.” Mounting this large-scale production is challenging, yet each year the many hours of musical and logistical preparations pay off with a delightful and inspiring performance. New selections of secular and sacred music are performed each year, along with some recurring pieces that audience members look forward to hearing, such as “Fruitcake” and the traditional grand finale.
“The Winter Music Festival began in 1917 and predates the venerable Gates Gymnasium by 12 years,” said David Ladd, Music Department Chair. “As far back as anyone I know can remember, the Festival always finished with the Hallelujah Chorus [from George Frederic Handel’s oratorio “The Messiah,”] sung by the Festival Chorus and accompanied by either the Symphony Orchestra or the Combined Symphonic and Concert Wind Ensembles. This year it is the wind ensembles’ turn.”