While they didn’t come in first, the sixth-grade class at St. Mary of the Lakes School was named a semifinalist in radio station B101’s Christmas choir competition. Instead of singing a Christmas staple, the class sang an original piece written by St. Mary of the Lakes’ music teacher Toni Burdey.
Burdey, who teaches pre-K and fourth- to eighth-grades, said this past year was the third time the school participated in the contest.
In the past, she has submitted finale numbers from the school’s Christmas show with fourth- to sixth-graders.
This year, however, she went with a song she wrote in 1997 called “The Christmas List” — sung by her sixth-graders — about what children want for Christmas.
She resurrected the song this past year, and let the kids update it a bit to reflect what they would want for Christmas.
“We recorded it, and just as a lark, I sent it in never, never dreaming that they would like it enough to want to put it on the radio,” Burdey said.
St. Mary of the Lakes was one of nine semifinalists out of hundreds of competitors.
The winner got funds for their music department and a chance to sing with Philadelphia Pops orchestra.
The way the contest worked was listeners got to vote on which songs would make it to the next level.
St. Mary of the Lakes is made up of 450 families whereas one competing school has a many as 5,000 families.
“It was a numbers game and I guess we didn’t have the numbers,” Burdey said.
“I am very, very proud of our kids,” she said. “I think they did an outstanding job.
“I was proud to have my song represented by them. It was wonderful to hear our song played several times during the Christmas season.”
A teacher at St. Mary of the Lakes for 16 years, Burdey said she recorded the song using her iPod Touch in the auditorium.
“We’re a private school — we don’t have the fund a public school has to purchase expensive audio equipment,” she said.
The sixth-grade has 45 children in it.
Burdey said she would continue to enter the school in the B101 competition.
“I love my job,” she said. “I absolutely love my job.”
