PHS Choir performed this year’s holiday POPS! concert. In collaboration with Broadway singer Andrea Ross and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, allowing audiences to enjoy repertoire from various ensembles.

Since 2003, PHS Choir has been performing at the annual POPS! concert with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, giving generations of choir students the opportunity to perform with a professional orchestra. Previous vocalists included Morgan James, Janet Dacal, and Laquita Mitchell, as well as the New Jersey Tap Ensemble, a non-profit professional tap dance group.

“[The concert was] so popular that it was sold out with standing room only. So now they’ve added a second performance in the last three years,” said Sarah Pelletier, a choir teacher at PHS.

Assembled by Princeton Symphony Orchestra, this year’s program deviates from their usual classical repertoire, featuring lighter, longtime holiday favorites such as “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

“[The program] is a combination of holiday songs, festive songs, mostly pop and jazz and traditional carols with cool arrangements,” said PHS Choir director Vincent Metallo.

In addition to classic holiday tunes, the song selection featured iconic Christmas soundtracks, such as “Believe” from “The Polar Express” and “Somewhere in My Memory” from “Home Alone”.

“I really like “Somewhere in My Memory,” said Raima Srivastava ’25, a member of the PHS Choir. “In the movie [there are] a bunch of children singing, and it’s kind of like us. It sounds really cute [and] beautiful, and I really like the way the conductor conducts it.”

A tradition of the concert is for the audience to singalong at the end. Not only do the choir students get the opportunity to lead, the audience is also able to feel truly engaged.

“I hope that the audience enjoys the music, and [that] it’s an experience,” said Marcus Strum ’27, who’s a member of PHS Choir.

The event joined the singers together in holiday spirit, and provided learning experiences for the choir students.

“[It’s an] absolutely great experience for our kids to sing with a professional orchestra. Most schools don’t ever. [It’s] been really great [and it] teaches them a little bit more about performance etiquette, what it’s like to collaborate with professionals,” said Metallo.

The different interpretations of the music between the choir and orchestra allowed them to collaborate, building off of each other.

“It’s really cool to just kind of go off of the orchestra because they do the pieces a little differently than how we rehearse them in choir,” said Srivastava. “Sometimes I watch the orchestra perform and I’m so encapsulated by how they perform that I just forget to actually try when I sing, but they’re really good every year that we perform with them.”

In coming together with Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Andrea Ross, the performance allowed for a blending of various vocal ranges and instruments.

“We’ve worked really hard on it,” said Jenna Stucky ’25, a member of PHS Choir. “We often rehearse [as just] sopranos [and] altos. More recently, we’ve been coming together … and it’s just super cool to see all those voices coming together and [the] people in choir this year. So I love hearing everyone’s voices together.”