After a one-year hiatus, the Northwest Civic Orchestra will again mark the holiday season with an evening of slides, beautiful decorations, tasty goodies, and Christmas music. “Making Spirits Bright” will be presented on Saturday, December 2, at 7:00 pm in the Nelson Performing Arts Auditorium on the Northwest College campus.
General Admission is $12.00, seniors 62 and up are $8.00, and students and children are admitted free of charge. Enjoy Powell’s annual “Christmas Fest” and the lighted parade, then make your way to campus and celebrate with the Northwest Civic Orchestra.
The concert opens with “A Most Wonderful Christmas”, a delightful medley of “Winter Wonderland”, “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and the rousing, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!”
Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is up next on the program, followed by a renaissance arrangement of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, made famous by Mannheim Steamroller.
Adolphe Charles Adam wrote the next selection on the program, the much-loved and widely recorded “O Holy Night” (Cantique de Noel). The orchestra then performs music from the movie, Frozen, including the favorite “Let it Go!”.
The familiar sing-along concludes the first half of the program, with the twist that it will also be a “play-in”, as several students of orchestra members will join the orchestra for these selections!
The orchestra opens the second half with “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24”, an arrangement of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Carol of the Bells”, first found on the heavy metal band Savatage’s album, “Dead Winter Dead”. The piece was released by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra” and describes a lone cellist playing in war-torn Sarajevo.
“Around the World at Christmas Time”, the orchestra’s next selection, features “O Tannenbaum” (Germany), “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” (Poland), “What Child is This” (Great Britain), “O Sanctissima” (believed to be Italy), “The Hanukkah Song” (the Middle-East), “Whence Comes this Rush of Wings” (France) and finally the USA’s “Go Tell it On the Mountain”.
Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” is followed by a shift in mood, as the string section performs Corelli’s Concerto Grosso Op 6, No. 8, his “Christmas Concerto.” The piece calls for two solo violins, string orchestra and continuo (a continuous bass line). It was meant to be performed in a church, though not as part of the liturgy and the final movement, and a “Pastorale” may have been depicting the shepherds who visited the manger in the Christmas story.
The concert concludes with more contrasting pieces, first “Stille Nacht” (also made famous by Mannheim Steamroller) and finally Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.”
The orchestra is conducted by Maurine Akin.