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WELLSBURG -- Each year around Christmas, members of the Brooke High School Madrigal Choir present an evening of music, humor and food served up much in the style of a medieval feast.
Like many public events this year, the Brooke High School Madrigal Feast has been canceled, but that hasn't stopped the group from inviting the community to join them at 7 p.m. Saturday for a virtual presentation of the songs and skits they would have performed live.
Celesta Berga, the school's choir director, said thanks to modern technology, the choir's 12 members have again donned the medieval style costumes for which they are known and rendered an assortment of musical selections for video that will be available at 7 p.m. on the Brooke High Madrigal Choir and Brooke High School Choral Department Facebook pages.
Berga noted that, unfortunately, her students won't be able to serve up the medieval style dinner prepared in recent years by Chef Rocco Basil. The dinner included roast pork loins, stuffed chicken breasts and other tasty entrees.
But she has posted the recipe for wassail, the hot punch that has been a staple of the meal and the inspiration for a sung toast.
For those planning to prepare some to drink while they watch, its ingredients include apple cider, brown sugar, frozen lemonade and orange juice concentrate, cloves, allspice, ground nutmeg, two cinnamon sticks, tea bags, sugar and water.
Drinking various forms of wassail was a yuletide medieval custom, when it sometimes consisted of warmed mead with roasted crab apples. Its name comes from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning "Be healthy" and inspired the Christmas carol, "Here We Come a-Wassailing."
"I'm hoping people at home will make an evening of this," said Berga, who noted the video presentation can be viewed at other times if other plans have been made for Saturday.
She said it will be a unique experience for her and the choir for multiple reasons.
For one, because it has been recorded, the students can be part of their own audience. And for another, they will be able to reach many more people than ever before.
While the madrigal feast has been attended by 300 on the two nights in which it was held, a post of the choir singing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on Oct. 31 had about 1,400 viewings.
Berga said her education in video production was in its early stages when that was assembled.
"That was like getting my toes wet," she said.
Berga said she spent many hours learning to use professional video editing software while also instructing her students in recording their own performances.
She noted much of her instruction has been online since the school year started with students attending in person on two days and participating at home on three before Brooke County Schools reverted entirely to virtual instruction in mid-November.
As a result, the choir learned just two of the feast's songs at school, Berga said.
She said much of the virtual feast was produced by editing together recorded individual performances by choir members, who sang to instrumental music they heard through headphones.
While that veered from their usual approach of performing a capella, it was the best way to present them singing together, Berga noted.
She added the program also will include the students in sketches using Google Meet, a videoconferencing application; and instrumental music performed by small ensembles from the school's band led by Johnny Leonard, the school's band director.
Berga said the presentation is in lieu of live concerts normally presented by the school's music departments and she's thankful for the technology that made it possible.
"We're blessed to have the technology to still reach the community at this time," she said, adding, "Our community is missing out on so much. We're so happy to be able to put something out there for them."
(Scott can be contacted at wscott@heraldstaronline.com.)