After a mere two rehearsals last weekend, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) treated roughly 7,000 audience members to a smart, polished Holiday Pops concert Saturday at The Mark. Joining the QCSO’s 82 musicians were 109 singers from the Davenport First Presbyterian Church Sanctuary Choir, a 97-voice children’s chorus, 22 members of the Figure Skating Club of the Quad Cities, and jazz quintet The Hot Club of San Francisco – a rather grand total of 315 performers.
Naturally, the program featured epic settings of perennial Christmas favorites, but the generous variety of music and the performers’ energy balanced the holiday glitz.
Careful management of pacing and choreography characterized the entire program. During one of the pieces featuring skaters, for instance, the orchestra and choir performed an expansive, meditative setting of “Silent Night.” As in many art forms, slow, sustained pieces render artists’ mistakes far more transparent, but both musicians and figure skaters performed beautifully. The piece began with four younger skaters and concluded with Russian pairs skaters Andrei Bushkov and Elena Kvitchenko Cockerell. Both are seasoned international competitors now coaching and choreographing at the Quad City Sports Center. Their fluid, sensuous dance captured the audience, and some of the more daring lifts they executed drew gasps.
New this year, and an obvious favorite with the crowd, was Quad City Arts Visiting Artist The Hot Club of San Francisco, playing Django Reinhardt style jazz manouche (gypsy jazz). Covering “Jingle Bells” (reworked in a minor key) and “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting),” the group’s nuanced, deeply chromatic improvisations and elan added creative fire to the evening, and an excellent counterpoint to the evening’s choral-orchestral core.
George Bizet’s “Farandole” from L’Arlessiene: Suite No. 2 (commonly known as “March of the Kings”) showcased the QCSO’s technical precision and verve, as well as guest conductor Michael Butterman’s charismatic style. International selections included the West Indian spiritual “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy,” with the children’s chorus grooving to a samba beat, and “Brazilian Sleighbells” with Santa, his sleigh, and a retinue of cheerily dressed skaters careening around the rink with unrestrained silliness.
Musically, Barlow Bradford’s setting of “What Child Is This” was easily the most intriguing piece. The mysterious introductory bars, built on the whole-tone row, led into lush, impressionistic harmonizations and productive dissonances that, although bold and intricate, still allowed the familiar melody to shine through.
It was easy to see, after the Sanctuary Choir’s performance of such a challenging piece, why it has been featured on a PBS special, with a second special soon to be broadcast nationally.
The choir’s director, Steve Jobman, noted that as artistic director for the Holiday Pops, one of the larger challenges is to design a show that simultaneously allows a diverse audience to connect with their own memories of the holidays and keeps the musicians happy. To that end, he strives “to choose music that the trained ear appreciates and the untrained ear enjoys,” he said. Based on the glowing performers, and the standing ovation that closed the evening, he succeeded.
Careful management of pacing and choreography characterized the entire program. During one of the pieces featuring skaters, for instance, the orchestra and choir performed an expansive, meditative setting of “Silent Night.” As in many art forms, slow, sustained pieces render artists’ mistakes far more transparent, but both musicians and figure skaters performed beautifully. The piece began with four younger skaters and concluded with Russian pairs skaters Andrei Bushkov and Elena Kvitchenko Cockerell. Both are seasoned international competitors now coaching and choreographing at the Quad City Sports Center. Their fluid, sensuous dance captured the audience, and some of the more daring lifts they executed drew gasps.
New this year, and an obvious favorite with the crowd, was Quad City Arts Visiting Artist The Hot Club of San Francisco, playing Django Reinhardt style jazz manouche (gypsy jazz). Covering “Jingle Bells” (reworked in a minor key) and “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting),” the group’s nuanced, deeply chromatic improvisations and elan added creative fire to the evening, and an excellent counterpoint to the evening’s choral-orchestral core.
George Bizet’s “Farandole” from L’Arlessiene: Suite No. 2 (commonly known as “March of the Kings”) showcased the QCSO’s technical precision and verve, as well as guest conductor Michael Butterman’s charismatic style. International selections included the West Indian spiritual “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy,” with the children’s chorus grooving to a samba beat, and “Brazilian Sleighbells” with Santa, his sleigh, and a retinue of cheerily dressed skaters careening around the rink with unrestrained silliness.
Musically, Barlow Bradford’s setting of “What Child Is This” was easily the most intriguing piece. The mysterious introductory bars, built on the whole-tone row, led into lush, impressionistic harmonizations and productive dissonances that, although bold and intricate, still allowed the familiar melody to shine through.
It was easy to see, after the Sanctuary Choir’s performance of such a challenging piece, why it has been featured on a PBS special, with a second special soon to be broadcast nationally.
The choir’s director, Steve Jobman, noted that as artistic director for the Holiday Pops, one of the larger challenges is to design a show that simultaneously allows a diverse audience to connect with their own memories of the holidays and keeps the musicians happy. To that end, he strives “to choose music that the trained ear appreciates and the untrained ear enjoys,” he said. Based on the glowing performers, and the standing ovation that closed the evening, he succeeded.
