Holiday Songs for Beginning String Orchestra: Winter Fest and Nuts, Crackers, Sweet

Want to add a sparkle to your string-orchestra holiday program? These fun and inventive arrangements are perfect for a Level 2–3 ensemble. "Winter Fest" is a fantasia of tunes from Vivaldi's "Winter" concerto, from The Four Seasons, spiced up by a liberal dusting of idiomatic rock phrases.

"Nuts, Crackers, Sweet" packages three tunes from Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker—the Overture, the March, and the "Russian Dance"—paired with the fiddle tunes "Cripple Creek" and "Cluck Old Hen." Add these festive pieces to your school's holiday repertoire.

**Please note that the violin III and viola parts contain the same music, but are written in different clefs to allow for flexibility in available instrumentation. These pieces may be performed with either violas or violin III's or any combination of the two.**

Also available is the audio download of each song performed by the Real Vocal String Quartet.

Arranged by Renata Bratt.