Ring in the Holidays with the HHSO "Holiday Pops"!

The Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Music Director and Conductor Mary Woodmansee Green, will ring in the season with the HHSO with the annual HOLIDAY POPS – this season marking the centennial of Boston Pops composer and conductor Leroy Anderson.   The performance—the 4th Master Series program of the 2008-09 season—will be at Hilton Head’s First Presbyterian Church on Monday, December 8, at 8 pm.

“This season’s Holiday Pops is a Centennial tribute to the Boston Pops’ favorite composer, Leroy Anderson,” said Green in announcing the program.  “It will include his well-known Christmas Festival, Sleigh Ride and Bugler’s Holiday.  The Carillon Bell Choir will add their own special luster, and Savannah’s Joe Hoffman will tell Clement Moore’s classic ‘Twas the Night before Christmas.   We will also play ‘classical’ holiday favorites and end with a medley of favorite carols for the audience to sing.  Join us afterward for a festive reception in the church’s Fellowship Hall.”

Other Anderson favorites on the program are Fiddle Faddle, The Typewriter and Plink, Plank, Plunk.  This concert includes other well-known pieces associated with the holiday season:  Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Waldtuffel’s Skater’s Waltz; selections from Handel’s Water Music,  and Bizet’s “Farandole” (“The Three Kings”) from L’Arlesienne. 

Each half of the concert ends with familiar carols—British composer Bryan Kelly’s colorful five movement Improvisation on Christmas Carols and Bill Holcombe’s medley of favorites, Christmas Wishes.

Leroy Anderson, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1908 to Swedish immigrant parents, graduated from Harvard with an M.A. in music but was unsure of pursuing music as a livelihood.  Though he worked on a PhD in languages at Harvard, he eventually returned to his first love because of the work he was doing to earn a living—teaching music, directing church choirs, playing for bands and orchestras and working as a free-lance arranger.  His break as an arranger came in 1936 when he was asked to arrange school songs for the Boston Pops’ annual “Harvard Night”; that brought him to the attention of Arthur Fiedler.  During World War II, he served as a translator for the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps and wrote The Syncopated Clock.  The period from 1946 to 1954 was fruitful; many of the pieces in tonight’s concert were written then.  Anderson’s music is instantly recognizable, by its familiarity or his meticulous craftsmanship.  His compositions include some of the most familiar and popular tunes of the last 75 years. With every hearing his music continues to sound fresh, inventive, interesting, and—as the composer intended – entertaining.

We will be collecting canned goods and unwrapped gifts for children at the door and are asking all who attend to bring a gift in the spirit of the season which we will provide to Deep Well.

Concert tickets are $20, $30, and $40.  Call the Hilton Head Orchestra Box Office at (843) 842-2055 to purchase tickets, or log on to the orchestra website at www.hhso.org.  American Express, Master Card and Visa are accepted.  Program Notes are posted on the website prior to each concert.