Adrian Symphony Orchestra invites community to join 'Together for the Holidays'
ADRIAN — A much-loved Christmastime tradition for the Adrian Symphony Orchestra — its holiday pops concert — returns this weekend with a performance the ASO has titled “Together for the Holidays.”
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, at Adrian College’s Dawson Auditorium. Tickets are $32/$29/$21 for adults, $30/$27/$21 for senior citizens and $18/$15 for students, and are available online at adriansymphony.org, by calling 517-264-3121 or at the door Saturday beginning two hours before the concert.
A cash bar opens at 6:30 p.m. in the Dawson lobby.
Calling the concert “Together for the Holidays” was a deliberate choice by the orchestra’s leadership. With the pandemic having disrupted so many holiday celebrations for the past two years, “we wanted to bring people together again,” ASO Music Director Bruce Anthony Kiesling said.
This year’s concert returns to a longtime prepandemic format: featuring local soloists and ensembles as a way of celebrating the wider Lenawee County community.
The ASO will be joined by two soloists — local singer Jonathan Crayne and University of Michigan voice student Andrew Smith — along with the Clinton Youth Honors Choir, the Tecumseh High School Chamber Singers and the Lenawee Community Chorus.
“It’s nice to be able to return to this kind of concert, a community event,” Kiesling said. And he loves the fact that the concert features vocal ensembles from such a range of ages: youngsters, high school students and adults.
The concert features music in a wide range of styles, from movie tunes to traditional vocal selections to orchestra pops and classical pieces.
Crayne sings two pieces, “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Last Christmas,” while Smith will perform “Mary’s Boy Child” and “O Holy Night.”
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Three songs from the film “Home Alone” are on Saturday’s program as well: “Somewhere in My Memory,” sung by the Clinton ensemble, and “Star of Bethlehem” and “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas” by the Tecumseh High School group.
The Lenawee Community Chorus will lead the audience in both a carol sing-a-long and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from “Messiah.”
Also on the program are several works for the ASO alone, not all of which might be the expected Christmas-orchestral fare.
Yes, there are two Leroy Anderson works: the ever-popular “Sleigh Ride” and the “Christmas Festival Overture,” which incorporates a number of traditional Christmas carols. And, yes, there is music from the “Nutcracker” — but “it’s not the usual ‘Nutcracker’ music,” Kiesling said; rather, it’s the “Arabian Dance” and “Mother Ginger.”
The orchestra will also play the fourth movement, the “Farandole,” from Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2,” which actually does have a Christmas-music connection: one of the works Bizet used in this section was the French carol “March of the Kings.”
Every year that the ASO has presented a holiday-pops concert, it’s proven to be one of the most popular events in the orchestra’s season. Kiesling thinks this year’s edition, especially with its return to a more “community” theme, will be no exception.
For one thing, he said, it gives people the chance to take a break from the busy-ness of the holiday season. But, he added, there’s much more to it than that this time around.
“There’s a different vibe this year,” he said. “People are looking for things to do together again.”
If you go
WHAT: “Together for the Holiday” ASO pops concert featuring local soloists and ensembles
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10
WHERE: Dawson Auditorium, Adrian College
TICKETS: $32/$29/$21 for adults, $30/$27/$21 for senior citizens, $18/$15 for students
HOW TO ORDER: Online at adriansymphony.org, by calling 517-264-3121 at the door Saturday beginning two hours before the concert
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: ASO invites community to holiday pops concert
