A Joyful Extravaganza to Usher in the Festive Season: Inaugural HRA Holiday Arts Happening to Feature Performing Artists Across All Three Divisions

Hampton Roads Academy Director of Theatre and Performing Arts Department Chair Kate Goddin describes herself as “a big fan of bringing the community together as often as possible … from the littlest tiny ones to the oldest ones.”

As the winter season approaches, this vision will become a reality at the inaugural HRA Holiday Arts Happening, held in the Svein J. Lassen Auditorium at 2:00 pm on Saturday, December 5. Free and open to the public, the festive concert will feature performing artists across all three of HRA’s academic divisions, including vocalists, instrumentalists, dancers, and actors.

With an audience that includes members of the wider community as well as the Navigator family, the one-of-a-kind event will showcase the incredible talents that HRA students develop through high-caliber arts programming in all grades, from Pre-Kindergarten through their senior year.

“There are opportunities at every single level,” said Director of Bands Brian Grieb. “We are that one-stop shop here on the Peninsula for everything.”

Most importantly, the Holiday Arts Happening will be a joyful shared experience for all involved, on and off stage. The schoolwide extravaganza will be the centerpiece of an eventful season for the performing arts at HRA, beginning in October with a pair of alumni-authored and student-directed one-act plays, continuing the following month with a special Veterans Day band concert, and concluding in December with the Middle and Upper School choral and strings concerts on the 12th and a third- and fourth-grade theatrical performance just before winter break.

As artists of all ages, buoyed by seasonal spirit, come together at the Holiday Arts Happening, the audience will be treated to an upbeat celebration of the school community’s accomplishments throughout the fall semester and an exciting sendoff on the cusp of a new year.

Showcasing Artistic Abilities and Unmatched Opportunities

The idea for the Holiday Arts Happening emerged from a discussion within Goddin’s department about ways to broaden the scope of performing arts presentations at HRA. Aware that the primary audience for school concerts consisted of the families of those on stage and others at the Academy with a particular passion for the arts, the theatre director and her colleagues prioritized exposing the broader community to the multitude of performing arts opportunities available on campus. The goal was to encourage new as well as current families, particularly in the Lower School, to explore the many creative outlets HRA offers throughout the Navigator experience.

The Performing Arts Department drew inspiration from HRA Athletics’ many division-spanning community events throughout the year, from Lower School Nights for football and basketball to the annual tradition of Noodle Night, all underscoring the personal growth, the standard of excellence, and the broad involvement in school life that define an HRA education at every level.

“Our students are involved in so many activities,” said Grieb, now in his second year as part of the Academy’s performing arts faculty. “It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to HRA and why I send my own children here.”

Featuring an almost dizzying list of musical and dramatic ensembles, with many students performing in multiple acts, the Holiday Arts Happening, according to the band director, will vividly illustrate “how involved our students are in so many different disciplines.”

An Electrifying Program

The show will kick off with a festive opening by HRA’s Middle and Upper School strings students, followed by the concert band, performing a number with special guest Chris Joyce, an Upper School history teacher and the iconic voice of Navigator Athletics.

Next to take the stage will be the 7 O’Clock Jazz Band, playing the swinging sounds of the season, both solo and accompanied by the Upper School choir. As the instrumentalists step behind the curtain, the singers will be joined by their peers in the Middle School chorus for a medley of holiday favorites.

The older vocalists will then hand the spotlight to the Lower School Trade Winds Chorus, keeping spirits bright with a cute winter tune, complete with kazoos, that will delight every family in the room. Switching things up with a modern take on a seasonal classic, the eighth- through twelfth-grade pop a cappella group Nowhere to Hide will close out the vocal portion of the concert.

For the penultimate act of the afternoon, Goddin’s Upper School acting students will deliver a dazzling dance routine, based on choreography they are studying in twice monthly master classes with Dance Works studio owner Emma Mead, mother of HRA performing arts alumnae Hannah ’25 and Sarah Mead ’25. Along with members of the school’s forensics team, these students will serve as “emcees” for the event, providing entertainment in the transitions between ensembles.

The grand finale will be a rendition of a beloved holiday standard by every performer featured over the course of the concert, all on stage at once. Filling the auditorium with music, this climactic number will be an encapsulation of the spirit of the event: a celebration of the talents of students across HRA and the privilege of creating art as a community.

“Making HRA a Destination for the Performing Arts”

According to Goddin, the Holiday Arts Happening promises to play a major role in organic program building in her department, as HRA’s youngest students look to their older peers as a visible demonstration of what is possible for them in the performing arts.

“It’s all about collaboration,” the theatre director explained. “These little ones and these big ones are learning how to work together to provide a shared experience to others.”

In the process, students in all age groups will glean lessons that can only be discovered through cross-divisional creative work. Middle and Upper School strings teacher Arkady Heifetz noted that more advanced learners “will gain patience and skill from performing alongside younger students,” among such other important takeaways as bolstered confidence and the practice in leadership that comes with guiding less experienced artists.

Younger Navigators, meanwhile, will have the opportunity to learn from fellow artists who are closer to them in age than are their teachers. The performing arts faculty expressed their hope that this more personal connection to the act of performing would inspire students in earlier grades to keep singing, to pick up an instrument, or to join the cast of a school play or musical.

“The Lower School students will look up to the older kids and see what they can look forward to when they get to Middle School and Upper School,” said Lower School music teacher and Trade Winds Chorus director Erika Caulford. “They will say hello in the hall if they see each other. It really sends a message of community.”

As Middle and Upper School choir director Marshall Severin observed, having an older student as a role model in the arts “helps the Lower Schoolers and Middle Schoolers feel more comfortable and connected to the group once they ‘age up’ to the next level.”

Junior trumpeter Weston Stilley ’28 agreed. Having been involved with the performing arts at the Academy for six years, Stilley, a member of the concert band as well as the 7 O’Clock Jazz Band, remarked that cross-divisional events “help to display the delta in how much a student can grow over their time at HRA.”

Senior Aaron Carlson ’27, a founding member of Nowhere to Hide and the 7 O’Clock Jazz Band who will also be performing with the concert band and choir at the Holiday Arts Happening, offered a similar assessment. “From the eyes of a younger performing artist,” he said, “events like this show that there is so much to offer at HRA performing arts, whether you like playing an instrument, singing, acting, or simply speaking with the forensics team. As an upperclassman, I definitely love getting to show the generations what they’re capable of when it comes to making HRA a destination for performing arts.”

Carlson, who had the privilege of arranging the vocal part of a song for the upcoming event, suggested that this concert could enable younger students to meet mentors who would shape their creative trajectory. He pointed to several older Navigators who were vital to his musical journey, such as CJ Erwin ’25, with whom he worked on some of his earliest arrangements; Caroline Rous ’24, whose last HRA theatrical production was his first; and Heather Lowekamp ’26, with whom he sang from the time he joined the choir in eighth grade until her graduation last spring.

The inaugural Holiday Arts Happening will be an occasion for Navigators to build invaluable connections, for students to discover new creative passions, and for families across Hampton Roads to experience the transformative power of the performing arts program at HRA. Above all, it will be an ideal opportunity to come together and get in the festive spirit.

“It is just going to be an hour of pure joy and community,” Severin said. “It will be a great way to kick off anyone’s December celebrations!”

Reserve your seat at the Holiday Arts Happening today!