This feisty and festive holiday work finds our titular anti-hero taking to the seas to spread his brand of holiday mayhem. Written in a jaunty 3/4 time, Chapter 2 of the “Santa the Barbarian Saga” evokes both yuletide cheer and danger on the high seas as our jolly old elf and his pirates pillage, plunder, and bring the spirit of the season to anyone unlucky enough to cross their paths.

Program Notes:

In 2021, I wrote a fun little work entitled Santa the Barbarian.  I wrote it mainly because it made me smile and it was completely different from any other Christmas music I had written.  At a conference, somebody asked if I was going to write a sequel. “What will Santa the Barbarian do next?” they asked. I didn’t know.  I told them if I ever had a good idea for where the story went, I would write it, but ONLY if I had a good idea, and ONLY if I could make it educationally worthwhile. In early 2022, I was conducting the Southwest Iowa Bandmasters Association honor band, and during one of our Q&A sessions (though I cannot remember the exact content of the conversation), it was suggested that I write a piece called “Pirates of the North Pole.”  Slap.  Bang.  There it was.  THAT is what Santa the Barbarian would do next, of course. I also knew that I would need to make the piece distinct from its predecessor, as I didn’t want to repeat myself.  If ensembles were going to play a sequel, it had to have different educational material to make it worth their time.  This work features a 3/4 time signature as well as an emphasis on polyphony (multiple melodies overlapping at once) to add additional musical challenges for our players. Chapter 2 of the Santa Saga finds our anti-hero taking to the high seas to find new adventures and new lands to conquer.  Along with his pirate crew of Elves gone bad (Candy Beard, Sally Snowbank, Gingerbread the Terrible, and Angelica Twinkle-Toe Jones) and his reindeer (Basher, Danger, Lancer, Victim, Bomb-it, Brutis, Runner, and Blitz-Them), Santa navigates the icy Arctic waters looking for the next boatful of unfortunate souls unlucky enough to experience his brand of holiday mayhem, with a flash of his sword and a jolly “Yo Ho Ho Ho!”.  The work is written in the style of various sea shanties, and incorporates altered versions of The Ukrainian Bell Carol, Jolly Old St. Nicholas, Blow the Man Down, I Saw Three Ships, and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.