The Northwest Indiana Symphony and conductor Kirk Muspratt continued the 83rd season with their annual “Holiday Pops,” with 2 performances, Thursday, December 5 at the Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana; and Saturday, December 7 at Valparaiso High School. The concert featured guest singer James Judd and the Symphony Chorus.
The concert featured holiday classics like Adeste Fidelis, Silent Night, the First Noel, and Frosty the Snowman as well as pieces from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Ose Shalom to celebrate Hannukah, and the always popular audience sing-along of carols led by the Symphony Chorus.
“Whenever I run into people out in the community they always tell me how their holiday season doesn’t really start until they come to our Holiday Pops,” said Maestro Muspratt. “My wish for every concert we do, but especially the Holiday Pops, is that we program music that touches people, music that evokes nostalgia, and music that is just plain fun. The comments we received after these concerts were so heartwarming and told me we achieved that goal.”
The Symphony has performed one concert of their Holiday Pops cycle at the Valparaiso High School Auditorium for the past several years and this year’s concert there was SOLD OUT weeks ahead of the concert. The other concert in the Holiday cycle this year was performed at a new venue, the Hard Rock Live at the Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana. This professional concert venue offered the Symphony additional audio/visual capabilities and larger seating capacity as well as pre and post-concert dining options for Symphony patrons. Between the two concerts the Symphony performed to more than 2300 patrons this year!
A recording of this concert will be broadcast on Lakeshore Public Radio on Monday, December 18 at 7pm and again on Christmas Day, December 25 at 10am.
Tickets are available for the Symphony’s remaining concerts in their 83rd season including Choral Valentine, February 2; Musical Masterpieces, March 21; String Bass Ensemble, April 6; Tchaikovsky!, April 25; and a Salute to John Williams, May 15 & 16. Tickets for the concerts range from $45 -$79 each and students are $10. GROUP SALES ARE AVAILABLE AT A DISCOUNT. Call the Symphony office at (219) 836-0525 or visit the website at www.NISOrchestra.org for more information or to order tickets!
This Holiday Pops was sponsored by John W. Anderson Foundation, Hard Rick Casino of Northern Indiana, Powers Health, Porter County Community Foundation, Purdue University Northwest Department of Communications & Creative Arts and the College of Humanities, Education & Social Sciences, Vidimos Inc., Mechanical Concepts, John Cicco’s Menswear, Crown Point Community Foundation, Sue & Andy Arnold, Precision Control Systems, Centier Bank and the Times Media Company.