After we stuffed ourselves with turkey and dressing on Thanksgiving, the fall season was quickly forgotten, and replaced with ornate Christmas trees, holly, nativity scenes and twinkle lights. One of the biggest indicators of the season is the Christmas music heard from all around. At Ouachita, you might recognize some familiar voices in this year’s Christmas classics, as Campus Ministries recently released their first Christmas album entitled, “Christmas Under the Stars.”
The first idea of the album came from Nathan Perry, a senior accounting major from Benton, Arkansas. He was part of this year’s close knit Campus Ministries Tiger Tunes group, The CM Stars. The Stars performed extremely well, placing third overall, in the annual fund raising event held at Ouachita. Perry knew that there were exceptional singers in the group and decided that their voices should be put to some festive use. “After Tunes was over I was like, ‘Christmas is coming up, they’re all really good, and it would just be really fun,’” Perry said.
Already knowing what each voice sounded like, Perry decided to pick some of his favorite Christmas songs and match peoples’ voices to them. “I kind of talked to everyone who I had decided and said, ‘Hey you should do a solo and then we can do some group songs too,’” Perry said. The students who made it to the final cut include Mary Rothwell, Robert Pilcher, Noah Nalley, Raleigh Peterson, Holden Royals and Nathan Perry.
The entire process of putting the album together was quite a hard. “It was a lot of poor scheduling,” Perry said. Members of the album would find times when they were both free and head over to Perry’s apartment to record the songs. Sometimes they would go late into the night. “Recording took a lot longer than expected,” Perry said. “We could spend over two hours on just one song.”
Mary Rothwell, a senior, Christian studies major from Arkadelphia, was a part of the editing team and talent for the album. One of the things she enjoyed the most was learning the process of creating an album. “I had never been a part of, or seen people edit music before, so I really got to learn a lot out of it,” Rothwell said. “I got to see a new side of music and get a respect for people who have gone through this before.”
The album is currently available on iTunes and Spotify, which was not a simple or cheap process. The group had to pool their money together to pay for outside help to get the album approved and released. There were also some copyright hurdles they had to get over, as well. “Originally we recorded ten songs, but only six were in the public domain,” Perry said. Those six that were finally allowed were, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “White Christmas,” “Baby it’s Cold Outside,” “The Christmas Song,” “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
Even though the task was challenging at times, the whole process was really enjoyable for everyone involved. What started out as getting into the Christmas spirit, ended up as a bonding experience, and the addition of several life-long friends. “My favorite part was watching them grow closer…I watched them become friends during Tunes and I watched them stay friends after,” Perry said.
If you still need to get into that cheerful Christmas spirit, head over to iTunes and Spotify to listen to “Christmas Under the Stars.”
– By AJ Stambolie, Student Writer
