Boasting musical director Manuel Lopez III on drums, Ronald Wilson on bass, and Corey Kendrick on piano, the Polyrhythms Third Sunday Jazz Series wraps up its 2023 schedule with a December 17 performance at Davenport's Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Quad Cities, with the Polyrhythms Trio + 2 delivering festive holiday cheer with the three band members playing alongside special guests Manny Lopez and James Culver.

An annually beloved holiday-music tradition returns to the area as the professional vocal ensemble the Nova Singers presents its latest pair of A Nova Christmas concerts, with exciting and moving arrangements of favorite carols, traditional melodies, glorious ballads, and fascinating songs from around the world performed December 15 at Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church and December 16 at Galesburg's First Lutheran Church.

Following the program's success in more than 100 cities worldwide, including in Moline this October and November, the live, multi-sensory musical experience known as the Candlelight Concerts series enjoys its third Quad Cities engagement at Moline's Spotlight Theatre, with the eagerly awaited December 15 event Candlelight: Holiday Special Featuring The Nutcracker & More treating guests to traditional seasonal tunes and works by some of history's most noted composers, among them Claude Debussy, Antonjo Vivaldi, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

In the 2020s, the “doom” or “sludge” tag is increasingly self-applied, as an ethos as well as an aesthetic, by bands who create oppressive, cathartic music intended as a reflection of our dismal times. Such are the three bands – Body Void, SERAC, and Everlasting Light – playing Davenport's Raccoon Motel (315 East Second Street) on Friday, December 8.

An unforgettable holiday experience led by former Mannheim Steamroller keyboardist John Blasucci, the immersive touring event Luminare Christmas lands at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on December 10, bringing to audiences a singular fusion of reimagined holiday classics, high-energy symphonic rock, and cinematic magic.

On December 9 and 10, music fans are invited to ring in the holiday season with members of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra's brass and percussion sections in the yuletide delight Holiday Brass, an uplifting repertoire of classical and seasonal favorites being performed at Rock Island's Second Baptist Church and Davenport's St. Paul Lutheran Church.

With his pair of 2021 releases both earning raves from Blues Blast magazine – the studio recording Resurrection deemed "an excellent album" and the live LP Blues for the Southside described as "a high-flying, straight-ahead blues love letter" – acclaimed singer/songwriter and guitarist Mike Zito plays Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Rhythm Room on December 8, Rock & Blues Muse having called Resurrection “as good as modern blues gets.”

Touring in support of their fifth full-length recording Past the Light which is slated for December release, the Chicago-based musicians of Old Shoe play an album-release concert at Davenport's Redstone Room on December 8, the five-piece ensemble a frequently touring outfit that, according to WSUM.org, “incorporates rock, bluegrass, jazz, and a little folk, creating nothing but an upbeat atmosphere."

With their 2022 album White Trash Revelry lauded by Glide magazine as "a deeply satisfying mix of songs," country singer/songwriter and North Carolina native Adeem the Artist headlines a December 9 concert event at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, their most recent recording also hailed by PopMatters for the "authentic empathy that permeates this album and lends genuine gravity to the songs held within."

Headlining a December 5 concert in support of their 2023 release OK to Wonder, an album that Americana Highways said "provides listeners of bluegrass with revelry, wonder, and whimsy on 11 distinctive insightful songs," the touring artists of Arkansauce play Davenport's Raccoon Motel on December 5, their latest recording also inspiring Americana Highways to state, "The musicians perform in a tightly improvisational style within the structure of some tightly knit melodies."

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