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Youth Orchestras of San Antonio is putting on its Holiday music show Saturday night at the Tobin Center. Music Director Troy Peters says this will be a fun one.
“We're going to be doing a show on Saturday evening, December 20, called "The Holiday Spectacular." And this is kind of turning into an annual tradition that we collaborate with different organizations to put on a fun holiday show,” Peters said.
He notes that these collaborations make for a joyful tradition for YOSA. Each holiday season they make concerts that aren’t the same as the one from the previous year.
So this year, it'll be highlights from "The Nutcracker" with the School of Ballet San Antonio, and then we'll have some other traditional holiday favorites with the Children's Chorus of San Antonio,” he said.
Peters said they are presenting a wide range of music, starting with — of course — the perennial holiday favorite "The Nutcracker."
Why has it survived and thrived for the last 133 years?
“It's just primal. It just gets us at this level of … it's so beautiful. It's so full of joy. It's got a little bit of melancholy to it,” he said. “And all of that is like the holidays can be, you know, this thing that's nostalgic and joyful all at once, and the music is just ... it's endured for a reason. It's a real remarkable piece of music.”
The Saturday concert may well feature a "surprise" guest.
“We are expecting that we'll have a visitor from the North Pole late in the concert. We're going to play a medley of "Here comes Santa Claus," and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and I have a feeling that that there might be a person relevant to that music who will show up and lead the orchestra and the audience holiday singalong of Christmas carols.”
Peters also said that having that many performers on one stage, over two quite different disciplines, can be a lot of fun.
“It's a lot of fun to marshal that many forces, to have more than 100 orchestra musicians and several dozen dancers all on stage together. But we're doing all the most popular, familiar parts of the nutcracker,” Peters said.
“We're doing all the all the tunes that that people recognize, and it's a lot of a lot of fun to have dancers with "The Sugar Plum Fairy" and some of those other tunes that people hear on their Christmas radio stations.”
The Holiday Spectacular is happening at the Tobin on December 20 at 7 p.m.
Find ticket information here.
