Now with two performances for even more holiday fun!
Saturday, December 14, 2024
5:00 PM
Sunday, December 15, 2024
2:00 PM
In collaboration with the Hallmark Archives, vintage holiday cards from throughout Hallmark’s extensive collection will be projected during William Henry Fry’s delightfully charming Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony and Patric Standford’s clever reimagining of countless Christmas carols in symphonic form. Rounding out the program are Josh Trentadue’s drunken Wild Christmas Nightcap and a new fandango-inspired sleigh ride from Abdo Timejardine-Zomeño.
Season and individual tickets go on sale August 1, 2024, at www.freedomband.com. Individual Tickets are $20; season tickets are $50. Discounts are available on individual tickets for students with ID, educators, seniors, and first responders. Children under 12 are admitted free. Season ticket holders will have reserved seats for “Variations on Democracy.”
Vintage Holidays
Joshua Trentadue: Wild Christmas Nightcap
Patric Standford: A Christmas Carol Symphony
Abdo Timejardine Zomeño: New Sleigh Ride(commission and premiere)
William Henry Fry (trans. Lee Hartman): Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony
About the Program
A Wild Christmas Nightcap
Every year, the Christmas season usually leaves me feeling one of two ways. I'm either reflecting on the cozy, nostalgic, blissful, and sentimental feelings of home, hearth, and family traditions, or I'm groaning at the overbearing, technological nuisances of explicit commercialism that seem to capitalize on the impending season of presents and lights earlier and earlier with each passing year. The carols and songs associated with this holiday season conjure up more of the former feeling; the first appearances of this music on radio stations, however, seems to capitalize on the latter -- the continued commercialization of Christmas through your favorite airwaves, seemingly occurring earlier and earlier with each passing year.
With all of this in mind, what happens when one wreaks havoc on these contradictory feelings about the Christmas season? This is what I sought to answer with this piece -- a prog-rock/heavy-metal, zany, and adventurous fantasy for wind ensemble weaving several famous, public-domain Christmas carols into the fray. A Wild Christmas Nightcap is the pinnacle result of this concept -- a somewhat nightmare-fueled, sometimes caffeine-induced (insert literally any Christmas holiday coffee joke here), wild ride through a frozen landscape with uncertain twists and turns at every corner.
The musicians are given a shockingly quick tempo indicating "Like a Sleigh Ride Through a Frozen Inferno", finding themselves caught between percussive bursts of energy and flurries of manic runs. This is matched with seemingly serene moments of tranquility where the more nostalgic and sentimental, innocent feelings of the Christmas holidays are able to make an appearance, if only for a brief moment. Several Christmas carols even fight each other throughout this madcap work, moving from mixed meters and clashing rhythms to purely epic, and bombastic, moments of utter, quasi-religious majesty.So, picture going on this wild ride in the middle of a chaotic night while witnessing a sheer battle between commercialized holiday spirit and those wonderful, nostalgic memories of hearth and home. Serve with eggnog ... maybe with something else added to it.
¡Vamos A La Fiesta!
Paso Dobles can often take many forms. But usually, they are a Spanish march, aimed to be danced to whenever heard by a particular audience. My first experience with these types of marches was early in my days when my mom would play them on old CDs we had or showed me videos of events in Spain where this music was played. As an American with Spanish roots, I fell in love right away with this style of music, and it’s held a special place in my heart since.
When approached by the Mid America Freedom Band about writing this piece, I took everything I knew from playing various Paso Dobles and my own culture to bring my own voice to this style of music. ¡Vamos A La Fiesta! pays homage to my Spanish roots, and also serves as a thank you to my mother for introducing me to such a rich culture within our musical ancestry.
A Christmas Carol Symphony
"The Christmas Carol Symphony grew from the pot-pourri of seasonal tunes -- with which I would entertain my children -- becoming an illustration of the framework of a typical 18th century symphony. It was build for family amusement in the winter of 1978, and then orchestrated and then first performed in a broadcast on Christmas Eve 1979 by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Ashley Lawrence. I am greatly indebted to Sir Ernest Hall whose interest in the piece has contributed substantially to making a recording."
The first movement (Vivace) features the Welsh song "Deck the Halls," "Ding-Dong Merrily on High" which came from Arbeau's Orchésographie of 1588, and the traditional tune "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." A peaceful second movement (Andante tranquillo) is built around W.J. Kirkpatrick's 1895 tune for "Away in a Manger" and the 15th century melody made famous by Michael Pretorius early in the 17th century, "Behold a Rose is Springing." A lively March introduces the traditional tunes "Past Three O'Clock," the "Sans Day" or "St Day Carol" collected in Gwennap, Cornwall, and a Gloucester tune "The Holly and the Ivy" collected by Cecil Sharp. The Rondo finale begins with "On Christmas Night," a tune collected in Sussex by Vaughan Williams, the traditional song "I Saw Three Ships," and several others including "Christians Awake," a tune by John Wainwright known as "Stockport" dating from 1750, and the traditional American tune "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"
Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony
American composer William Henry Fry wrote the highly enjoyable Santa Claus: Christmas Symphony in 1853, deeming it “the longest instrumental composition ever written on a single subject, with unbroken continuity.” This claim, which is probably true, is quite surprising, as is the fact that the legend of Santa Claus was already ingrained in American culture eight years prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Fry counted composer Hector Berlioz among his important influences, and one can hear echoes of Berlioz’ grand orchestral effects in the piece, though Fry’s voice is his own. The Santa Claus Symphony is likely the first use of the recently-invented saxophone in an orchestral work. Though termed a symphony, it is really a tone poem, depicting a series of scenes.