The audience at Burlington High School’s jazz concert had been enjoying the Purple Aires’ much anticipated performance of a beloved staple of the holiday season when the unexpected occurred.
The ensemble had been nearing the end of “Fruitcake,” a song sung in sections according to voice type that essentially describes how to make a fruitcake, when sophomore Ian Hanks popped up his head and shouted “Remix!”
And so the song continued, with the sopranos singing the bass part, the altos taking over the tenor portion, the tenors shifting to sopranos, and the basses transitioning to soprano.
The audience loved it.
“I will give the kids the credit for that,” music teacher James Flaherty said. “It is nice to do a remix because it’s been around for so long.”
“Fruitcake” is a long-standing tradition for the Purple Aires, with this being the 50th year it has been performed, and, if previous support for it among students is any indication, it’s a tradition that won’t be broken any time soon.
The year was 1981, and Roger Hatteberg had just taken over as choir director the previous year.
“The story I have been told by Roger Hatteberg, who was in the district for a long, long time, was when he came in in 1980, the kids had been singing it for five years before, so he kept the tradition and put it in their folders for that concert,” Flaherty said. “And then in the Christmas concert of ‘81, he didn’t pull it out again and there was a riot.”
The outcry among students spurred Hatteberg to reverse course, and the Purple Aires went on to serve up “Fruitcake” that year and every year since, complete with perfectly paired choreography.
“I think it’s just so different from everything else that they do and it’s just silly and fun and real quick to learn,” said Flaherty, a 2012 BHS graduate who has fond memories of “Fruitcake” performances he was a part of as a high schooler. “I don’t think we sang through it for a week-and-a-half, two weeks before the concert.”
The remix wasn’t the only thing that shook up the Holiday Jazz Concert. The audience also got to see the debut return of New Legacy, a treble group that started around the time Flaherty was in high school but, like so many other things, was put on pause by the pandemic.
New Legacy’s return was made possible this year by a strong turnout.
“We have a really solid group of freshmen, which I credit Melissa Carper for kind of helping rebuild that middle school choir side of things after scheduling was crazy (due to COVID),” Flaherty said. “I had a really solid group of freshman girls who I knew could handle it and then a couple of upperclassmen who missed the deadline to audition into Purple Aires who stepped up in there also.”
Auditions for the Purple Aires are held within the first few weeks of the school year, and there will be plenty of “Fruitcake” to go around.
