A couple of years before Tiny Tim tiptoed through the tulips of America’s oddball garden of novelty singers, Mrs. Elva Miller (1907–1997) of southern California sharpened our appetite for the camp pleasure of the over-warbled, excruciating and off-pitch note. Now in the world-premiere of Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing at the Vineyard Playhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway director and writer James Lapine brings us the story of the rise and fall of this songstress and, well, the truth must be told: laughingstock.

Behind time and without a budget, Rob Meyers, the Island vocalist best known for his indie-pop band Kahoots, was working up his first radio jingle for Cronig’s. He had nailed the jazzy barbershop harmony, wrapped up the doo-wap top-off. All he needed was the catchy hook. Then, deadline looming, he hit it: (sing along now) “Everybody digs Cronig’s ...”

Three Falmouth Academy students from Martha’s Vineyard have earned places in competitive, high school music festivals — the Senior Southeast District Music Festival, which will be January 9-10 at Brockton High School, and the Cape and Islands Music Festival to be held February at Barnstable High School.

Several high school musicians auditioned for two off-Island festivals recently. All were selected for the All Cape and Islands Festival: chorus members Zach Rabin, Rosie Bick, Hannah Marlin, Emma Frizzell and Sidra Dumont, and string players Shaelah Huntington, Bethany Pennington, Anna Yukevich and Willoughby Smith.

Sidra Dumont and Bethany Pennington also were chosen for the Southeast Festival.

Music and Poetry

Winter Band Concert

More than 150 Vineyard musicians, all of them students in the Martha’s Vineyard All Island Band Program, will play in the annual winter concert this Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the regional high school’s Performing Arts Center.

The winter band concert features the fifth and sixth grade band, the seventh and eighth grade concert band and the seventh and eighth grade jazz band.

The show is free and all are welcome.

The words come out syncopated, layered, alto over soprano over bass over tenor and all rolling, rolling over you in an overlapping, ethereal echo: “We are the ones, we are the ones, we’ve been waiting for ...”

Sinfonietta Concert

Quiet, please? Not at the Vineyard Haven Public Library this Tuesday, when the reading desks will be pushed back to make way for a free Holiday Pops Concert with the Vineyard Sinfonietta.

The program includes music composed by Telemann, Gluck, Glazunov, Warlock, Britten, Willson and Gershwin. Playing will be Jan Hyer and Heidi Schultz on cello, Matt Pelikan on viola, Jo-Ann Ewing and Patricia Szucs on violin, and Holly Wayman and Nan White on flute.

Thanksgiving, done. Next? For many, the next holiday tradition is the classic ballet, The Nutcracker.

Children in the Arts of Martha’s Vineyard will present the 11th annual Nutcracker Gala at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Dec. 6, and Sunday, Dec. 7.

The Nutcracker Prince’s triumphant battle with the Mouse King? Check.

Darting Snowflakes? Arabian and Spanish dancers? Sugar Plum Fairy? Check, check, check (with sugar on top).

The Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society will introduce a sparkling new voice to Island music lovers at its holiday concert this Saturday, Nov. 29.

At 7:30 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown, pianist and artistic director Delores Stevens will be joined by singer Krista River and violist Scott Woolweaver for a concert of music by Brahms, Bach, Hummel, Loeffler, Chausson and Noel Coward.

Ms. River, a celebrated young mezzo-soprano, will be performing for the first time on a Vineyard stage.