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Community Corner

DuPage Symphony Celebrates "Holiday Traditions, Old and New" with December 15 Concert

 

The DuPage Symphony Orchestra continues its 60th Anniversary Season with “Holiday Traditions, Old and New”, a concert including both familiar and distinctive music of the holiday season.  Music Director Barbara Schubert conducts the DuPage Symphony, honored by the Illinois Council of Orchestras as the 2013 Community Orchestra of the Year, in a performance at Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Avenue in Naperville, on Sunday, December 15 at 3:00 PM.

 

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The performance features an array of familiar seasonal songs, carols, dances, and stories with a decidedly modern twist.  Soprano Valerie Vinzant, hailed by The Los Angeles Times for her “delectable lyric soprano” and her “pure silk voice”, joins the DSO to sing a variety of Christmas favorites – O Holy Night, Gesu Bambino, White Christmas, and more – and to present Jeff Tyzik’s delightful “Twelve Gifts of Christmas,” which blends excerpts from familiar classics of Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and others with a clever re-setting of the traditional holiday tale.

 

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Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s jazzy reinvention of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite anchors the second half of the DSO’s festive holiday program.  Drawn from the pair’s landmark recording of 1960, the work is an ingenious transformation of the original ballet:  the “Dance of the Reed Pipes” becomes a playful “Toot Toot Tootie Toot”; the “Waltz of the Flowers” turns into an energetic “Dance of the Floreadores”; and the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy” evolves into an unforgettable “Sugar Rum Cherry”.  Traditional Wassail Dances, the March of the Toys from Babes in Toyland, and Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride round out the program. 

 

Tickets for the December 15 performance by the DuPage Symphony are $25 balcony/$20 main floor for adults and $20 balcony/$15 main floor for students.  Tickets can be purchased by calling the North Central College Box Office at 630.637.SHOW or online at tickets.noctrl.edu.

 

Celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2013-2014, the DuPage Symphony is a 90-member ensemble of talented area musicians dedicated to the orchestra’s mission of “Surrounding Our Community With Music”.  The DSO presents a season of five subscription programs and a family holiday concert at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville, a series of intimate chamber music concerts in Wheaton and Lombard, and numerous outreach performances throughout DuPage County.  For more information, call the DSO office at 630.778.1003 or visit the orchestra’s web site at www.dupagesymphony.org.

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