Music Monday - Are Christmas carols okay again?
/Over the past two weeks as my high school students complete their final voice classes for the year, I have encouraged them to bring in ‘own choice’ songs from any genre. I do this every year, as do many singing teachers.
What has interested me this year, however, is that rather than choosing current popular songs, most of my students have asked to sing carols.
Now these are specialist music theatre students, reasonably diverse in terms of ethnicity, and not from predominantly Christian families. It is a government (secular) school. And by ‘carols’ the students have meant traditional songs such as Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night and The First Noel, as well as Christmas themed songs such as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Winter Wonderland and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.
A few years ago, schools were actively avoiding the use of Christmas carols in class and at assemblies, for fear of offending non-Christian cultural groups within their communities.
For several years, I kept carols out of December too.
So it was a real surprise to be singing and playing them for a good part of the last fortnight, especially as they were requested by the students.
Has Australia become more truly multicultural (despite the noisy racist minority) where we can sing songs from traditions other than our own for a cultural rather than religious experience? (For many years the blaring of Christmas themed songs and carols has been a feature in shopping centres – mainly to remind customers that it is the season of consuming. Few people have associated carols over the intercom with a perception of Australia as a Christian country).
Perhaps we are now happily moving to a time where we can appreciate some of the really good tunes in Christmas carols without letting it become socially divisive.
