Students lock their eyes on Amber Welter. The aluminum risers offer no refuge for wandering concentration.

Maybe this helps avoid the gaze of hundreds of relatives and friends in the Benton High School auditorium.

More likely, they focus on her hands, rhythmic gestures guiding the teenagers through the precise attacks and releases that choral music requires.

This space is familiar to the young people, the site of numerous assemblies and other school activities. But this night it holds to festive ceremony, and the request for silenced cell phones gets due attention.

Parents look with pride at their offspring, center stage and under bright lights, in long dresses and ties and tails. Their voices maneuver tricky harmonies and tempo changes.

These kids manage the Benton Winter Concert, its mix of sacred and contemporary offerings, with an aplomb that might surprise even themselves.

Mrs. Welter stands at its center. And she anticipates the long sigh that comes with the performance's end.

The school's choral director comes to this night with 11 years of experience, a still-young teacher with veteran instincts in choir preparation. With fall, winter and spring concerts on the academic schedule, she recognizes the need for her singers to peak at the right time.

In her classroom earlier in the day, amid jugs of Hawaiian Punch meant for the evening's post-performance reception, Mrs. Welter expects a show reflective of the work done toward it.

"I've never had a song in my 11 years where you step away and the crickets are chirping," she laughs.

The planning began in October, a slow building of material for the yuletide program that features 100 or so of her students. Five different ensembles will take the stage, male and female and mixed, some auditioned, some open to all Benton students.

Their range of talents necessitates a careful selection, a setlist to stretch but not exceed their abilities. Mrs. Welter blends crowd-pleasing carols with songs that challenge her students and their audience.

A madrigal composition gets equal billing with a standard like "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!" The Men's Choir ends with an up-tempo arrangement of "Born, Born In Bethlehem," while the more advanced Benton Singers chamber group tackles a French Christmas oratorio from the 1800s, college-level material.

"I always pick stuff that I personally love," she says of the songs. "Usually, if I love it, the kids will love it too. The kids really have to buy into it."

Most adventurous is a Spanish carol, "Villancico," performed as background as two students, Ali Bargu and Miranda Stanton, do a tango downstage. Mrs. Welter joins the Concert Choir on the risers as the number unfolds.

"They're being exposed to a lot of different styles and time periods," the director says, noting the autumn concert requires a trickier selection because she has yet to discover her choirs' collective strengths. "You have to pick a few pieces and hold on tight."

The teacher grew up in the area, attending East Buchanan schools before her family moved to Hermann, Mo. Once she finished high school, she came to St. Joseph to attend Missouri Western as a vocal music major. Her first job after graduation was at Benton and Spring Garden Middle School, but she stayed at the high school exclusively the last five years.

Between the schools, Mrs. Welter had some students for six years, admitting that the hours of rehearsal and time spent together help form a bond. A group she took to a competition in Washington, D.C., with American and Canadian choirs, brought home the sweepstakes prize, the best in show. She boasts of students' accomplishments as if they were kin.

(She and her husband have two children, the youngest born this summer.)

The Christmas season brings with it a performing bustle, the auditorium concert held amid trips to sing for service clubs and retirement homes. When the last bell sounds announcing the mid-year break, Mrs. Welter will turn attention to her own family's holiday rites.

Students stand in rows and watch for the director's cues. The accompanist, Jeremy Gregoire, plays the opening notes of "Rise Up, Shepherd." Parents have a look that says their children have never looked or sounded so good.

Mrs. Welter stands center stage in a season of belief.

Ken Newton can be reached

at kenn@npgco.com.