Clinton Symphony Orchestra’s annual “Holidays with the Symphony” concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Saturday [December 14] in the Vernon Cook Theater at Clinton High School. Joining the orchestra this year will be the voice of RiverChor, Clinton’s premier community choral group.
On the program are holiday favorites, including many associated with Christmas, but also “music to dispel the bleak mid-winter doldrums,” according to long-time CSO program annotator William H. Driver. He notes that several of the songs and carols that we use to celebrate the Christmas season were originally composed for other occasions, but have been appropriated to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, or to cast a holiday spirit over the doldrums of the “bleak mid-winter” landscape.
Mixed in with arrangements of traditional carols of Christmas will be a selection of songs celebrating Hanukkah, choruses from Handel’s Messiah, selections from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and the well-knownSkater’s Waltz by Emile Waldtuefel.
RiverChor will join the 50-piece orchestra for a performance of John Rutter’s How Great our Joy!, a selection entitled Christmas Memories, the choruses from Messiah, an acappella piece by Esther Scliar titled Lua, Lua, Lua, and the traditional sing-along with the audience.
Brian Dollinger is the popular conductor of the Symphony, now in his 13th season. Co-conductors of RiverChor are Karl Wolf, choral director at Clinton High School, and Chris Marple, most recently director of choirs at Dubuque Senior High School, and a doctoral candidate at the University of Iowa.
Tickets for the concert will be available at the door. Adult admission is $20. All students are admitted free of charge, and any student can sponsor an accompanying adult for a $10 ticket – half-price.
The program and William Driver’s complete program notes for the concert may be viewed online a twww.clintonsymphony.org. This is Clinton Symphony Orchestra’s 66th concert season.