Runtime: 2 hours with one intermission
THE BASICS: The HOLIDAY POPS WITH JOHN MORRIS RUSSELL (“JMR”) features the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and BP Chorus with five (5!) different soloists and a concerto for the BPO’s new “Christmas baby,” a brand new celeste. Thursday morning’s “Coffee Concert” (free coffee and donuts) repeated Friday at 10:30 am, with more shows Saturday evening December 16 at 7:30 pm and Sunday December 17 at 2:30 at Kleinhans Music Hall. For tickets ($12 to $108) visit bpo.org or call 716-885-5000.
THE CONCERT: Pops concerts conducted by John Morris Russell are always very high-energy affairs, but historically December’s Holiday Pops are over the top when “Mr. Christmas” (he once told me how many Christmas albums he owns… it’s just astounding) takes the stage. With 17 completely different numbers, I was put in mind of Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL: “Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success….”
I was particularly impressed with the various women of the BPO either in non-traditional roles and/or playing very cool instruments. For example, one of the seven double bass players, a traditional male bastion, was Ann Pendley. Another in the percussion section, a traditionally male bastion (is there an echo here?) was the very busy Emma Gierszal playing chimes, then crashing cymbals, then picking up mallets and whacking away at xylophone and bells. And then three soloists rocked the first half of the concert before intermission. After a rousing version of “Angels We Have Heard on High” featuring the chorus, operatic soprano Jennifer Cherest came on stage for “Gesu Bambino.” the first of her ultimately six songs throughout the concert. With a lovely lyric soprano, perfect for, say, singing Mozart, she’s the real deal, a product of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. (By the way, those auditions for the Buffalo Toronto District will be held this coming January 13, 2024, at the Flickinger Performing Arts Center on the Nichols school campus. Audiences are encouraged to come and stay all day or drop in as they can. It’s free and open to the public).
But wait there’s more! Stepping back from the grand piano (which you could hardly see there were so many people on stage) BPO Pops pianist Susan Schuman came downstage to play her new “baby,” an instrument made by the German Schiedmayer company that John Morris Russell told us is “the Rolls Royce of celestes.” Now, do you say “chuh-LEST?” as does JMR? Or do you say “chuh LESS tuh,” the Italian word, as printed in the program? Either way, it’s pretty special, as I found in conversation with Ms. Schuman. She told me that this 5-1/2 octave instrument (a piano has 7-1/2) has piano-like keys and piano-like hammers that don’t hit piano strings but rather hit little metal plates that make a tinkly “heavenly” or “celestial” sound. Schuman describes it as “pretty… gentle…ethereal” and as she promised, the concerto brings that out. It doesn’t have the dynamic range of the piano (which originally was called the “piano-forte” or “soft-loud” because of that volume range and the keyboard “touch” is, she said, more like an electronic piano keyboard than the mighty Steinway. You’ve heard this sound before because, after hearing it in France, Tchaikovsky had one shipped in secret to Russia, with strict instructions to keep it under wraps so that no other composer could “steal” the sound before Tchaikovsky could use it in his NUTCRACKER ballet, where it’s the sound of the Sugar Plum Fairies.
And speaking of fairies, here it was used for Michael Kurek’s “Fairy Dreams” Concertino for Celesta and Orchestra. It’s very otherworldly reminding me of soundtracks for say “Lord of the Rings” or “Avatar.” According to JMR addressing the audience from the podium, his predecessor as BPO Principal Pops Conductor, Marvin Hamlisch had programmed the piece years ago but then passed away all too soon and the piece was never rescheduled. According to Schuman, it’s been worth the wait because the new celeste is so superior to the old one that we’re getting the best possible version of “Fairy Dreams.”
One aspect of “Fairy Dreams” that fascinated me was the celeste (remember those little hammers striking the metal plates) was accompanied at times by the percussionist Emma Gierszal playing the bells (using handheld “hammers” to strike the metal bars). Similar technology, a totally different sound.
For a short video of the new celesta in action, played by BPO keyboardist Susan Schuman click here.
And, tah-dah! The naming contest to name the new celeste has a winner…. Congratulations Clare H.!!! introducing “Lumous” – the enchanting new celesta! As the BPO announced on Facebook Lumous, a Finnish word for enchantment and charm, perfectly captures the magical sound of this instrument. This name resonates deeply with us at the BPO, reflecting our ties to Finnish culture, our admiration for Jean Sibelius’s compositions, and the iconic architecture of our Kleinhans Music Hall by Eliel and Eero Saarinen.
If “Fairy Dreams” wasn’t wonderful enough, the very next piece was a “mash-up” of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto “Winter” (from “The Four Seasons”) with “O Hanukkah.” It’s a tour de force for the violin soloist, here the BPO’s Associate Concertmaster Amy Glidden, who alternates between the very familiar (and very fast) Vivaldi melody with the klezmer flavoring of the popular Jewish song. It’s also a great showpiece for all the sections of the orchestra.
So the first half of the concert featured the ladies and in the second half we got to hear the guys, starting with the big (in stature, personality, and voice) tenor John Riesen who belted out “O Holy Night” and then later returned for duets with Ms. Cherest. And we also were treated to a reading of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (which we all call “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”). As the stadium voice of the Buffalo Bisons baseball club, Tom Burns, read the poem by Clemente Moore, illustrations from a 1912 children’s book were projected on the screen while the orchestra played a baroque “Christmas Concerto” underneath the narration. And I’ve described perhaps 20% of the concert.
The BPO website says tickets run from $12 (not sure where those seats are) to $108. My middle balcony seats cost me $54 each and I feel that I got every penny’s worth. I’ve only scratched the surface of all that you’ll get in your two-hour show, so my best advice is to get over to Kleinhans to see and hear for yourself.
What’s next for the BPO?
A community outreach performed by BPO musicians is when they perform in smaller chamber groups around town, and this Friday evening, December 15, 2023 the Camerata Chamber Orchestra will perform their “Winterlude” concert with music by J.S. Bach, American choral composer Randall Thompson (with the Holy Trinity Lutheran Chancel Choir and the Amherst High School Concert Chorale), and a Western New York premiere of music of Juan Crisostomo Arriaga, known as “The Spanish Mozart.” It’s said that had Arriaga lived beyond his 19th year, he would’ve changed the flavor of not only Spanish music in particular but of all musical history. That concert will be at 7:00 p.m. (note the early start time) at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church 1080 Main Street, Buffalo, NY (across the street from the original Anchor Bar).
Kleinhans Music Hall is at “3 Symphony Circle” Buffalo, 14201 where Porter Avenue, Richmond Avenue, North Street and Wadsworth meet at a traffic circle. Visit www.bpo.org or call 716-885-5000. Full-service bar in the lobby or across the lobby in the Mary Seaton Room. Masks are optional.
Lead image: Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus in rehearsal ready for the Holiday Pops 2023