Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season (arr. Adam Scott): TTBB Choral Octavo

Adam Scott's arrangement captures the unhurried elegance of the original recording while writing for flexible voicing that works across different choir sizes and voice classifications. The medley format gives you two beloved standards in one rehearsal investment, and the barbershop idiom sits naturally for men's voices without requiring extensive retraining of your ensemble's fundamental blend and approach.

Conversational and unhurried. The harmonic language leans into gentle jazz color rather than choral brightness, creating space for nuance and lyrical phrasing. There's an inherent warmth here that comes from writing that respects the intimacy of smaller harmonic groups.

Men's choirs and mixed ensembles seeking approachable holiday material that feels substantial without demanding extensive rehearsal time. Directors programming concert or community performances want genuine repertoire rather than novelty songs, and this arrangement delivers both musical credibility and audience recognition.

• Balance the melody across your section leaders; the smoky quality of this arrangement depends on hearing all four lines clearly rather than driving the top voice forward.
• Treat the harmonic movement as linear rather than vertical. Each voice has its own musical shape, and connecting those lines phrase-by-phrase prevents the piece from becoming static.
• The octavo format gives you flexibility with doubling. Experiment with pulling your strongest readers onto a single part to anchor each section, especially helpful if your group is smaller or still building confidence with jazz harmony.

Slot this into winter concerts either as a standalone feature or as part of a longer holiday program where you want to shift the energy toward sophistication and reflection. The medley structure makes it useful for shorter concert slots when you need material that reads long but occupies less stage time.

• reading four-part jazz harmony in a barbershop context
• balancing individual line integrity within close harmony textures
• sustaining vibrato control in sustained chord structures
• adjusting intonation in altered and extended harmonies
• connecting lyrical phrasing across a medley structure