As senior Ben Polonsky plays guitar in his own arrangement of “A Felicidade” by Antônio Carlos Brasileiro an attentive audience listens to the high school instrumental performance.
The 2025 Winter Concert took place at 7 p.m. on Jan. 16, and the theater was filled to the last row with parents, siblings and other community members, listening to performances from the various middle and high school choirs and instrumental ensembles.
“The concert overall, I thought it was really good,” Ben said. “I think obviously there are always ways to improve. But, we went out there, we played to the best of our ability, and the crowd applauded, so the show must go on.”
The night started with performances of the middle school instrumental ensemble, who performed “Caravan” by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol, and a Klezmer song, “The Quiet Bulgar (And The Angels Sing),” both arranged by Upper School instrumental music teacher Gary Prince.
The middle school choir, accompanied by middle school counselor Deborah Amchin, performed “Thula Klizeo” and “Homeward Bound,” with seventh grade student Gabby Morris and sixth grade student Adi Kaplow soloing in “Homeward Bound.” It is also a tradition for the middle school ensemble and choir to perform a Hanukkah song together, so the two choirs did a rendition of “Light One Candle” by the band Peter, Paul and Mary.
After the middle school, the high school instrumental ensembles performed. This semester was the first of a course called “Advanced Arts: Advanced Music Composition.” It was available to upperclassmen who had taken at least two semesters of Instrumental Ensemble. The course required students to create compositions to perform alongside their peers. Throughout the semester, they worked on various arrangements as well as portfolios and their artist bios.
“My goal in doing this is to recognize and reward the many students who were already doing this kind of work outside of their classes, and create an opportunity for students who are really dedicated to music to engage in advanced study,” Prince said.
The period 4 ensemble played pieces arranged by Ben and juniors Bee Kotler and Rachel Fagin. All artists stood up and gave a brief speech including an introduction to the piece they were performing, why they had chosen it and the artistic choices they made.
Ben’s father, Alex Polonsky, said that Ben had constantly worked to make his arrangement up to his standards. At home, Ben would play his piece through a computer and work until he was satisfied with it, layering more instruments and even adding a section that was 30 seconds long.
“It was very involved, very time intensive, but very creative,” Alex said. “And he really was thrilled about doing it.”
The concert continued with a performance of junior Penn Stein’s arrangement with a small group, followed by the period 7 ensemble’s performances of arrangements from juniors Jonathan Gordon, Dara Blecher and Hadriel Dayanim.
The high school acapella group, Shir Madness then performed “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay, “Gibor Shel Ta’uyot” by Harel Moyal and “Your Song” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The night ended with all seniors in the music department performing “I Lived” by OneRepublic, arranged by senior Skye Feinstein.
“Including all the seniors in an instrumental for the senior song is something that I don’t think I’ve seen seniors do in past years,” Ben said. “So I think it’s great that we’re creating new traditions.”
The concert was filled with a mixture of enthusiasm from both the audience and performers during the many upbeat songs, and emotion during slow songs as the seniors participated in their last concert at JDS.
“This was an amazing concert,” Prince said. “Every semester it gets better and better somehow. Every semester I think, ‘how are we going to top this?’ And then we somehow always do, so I think this was one of the best that we’ve had.”