The holiday season is getting-off to a good start in central Louisiana. We music lovers have already been treated to a successful production by Red River Dance Theatre Company of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker this past weekend, but there’s plenty more in store over the weeks to come. Here are some highlights!
This coming weekend, the Rapides Symphony Orchestra will hold its annual holiday concert. Entitled Home for the Holidays, this will be a fun event for the whole family to attend. At this concert, the orchestra will perform holiday favorites accompanied by guest artists including the jazz pianist Jordan Baker and the Louisiana College Chorale. Santa Claus might even make a special guest appearance too. The concert will be held at Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center on Sunday, December 8 and will begin at 2:30 PM.
On Tuesday, December 10, the Alexandria Youth Orchestra directed by John De Chiaro will perform a concert for strings with a holiday flavor of its own. Having just returned from both Carnegie Hall and West Point, this talented and traveled young orchestra will give this concert as the Fifth Night in the City of Alexandria’s program The Twelve Nights of Christmas. The concert will begin at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, December 10 and will be held at Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center.
The following Tuesday, Red River Chorale will give its own holiday concert entitled Expressions of Hope and Joy. That evening, there’ll be plenty of cheerful holiday singing to inspire all audiences. This concert will be held at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in downtown Alexandria at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, December 17.
The next night, the ASAPH Project will present its Jazzy Christmas with their own jazz interpretations of Christmas favorites. This concert will be held at Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, December 18; hors d’oeuvres will be served at 7:00 PM and the concert itself will start shortly afterwards at 8:00.
The following night, the Alexandria Museum of Art will hold the December edition of its continuing Acoustic Concert Series. Considered the Eleventh Night in Alexandria’s Twelve Nights of Christmas, the Museum’s Third Annual Holiday Show will call together the performers who visited the Museum throughout 2013 in a holiday-inspired concert with host John Wakefield. This concert will begin at 6:30 PM on Thursday, December 19 at the Alexandria Museum of Art after the Museum’s holiday storytelling has concluded.
Make sure to check back at MusicCentral frequently in the busy weeks ahead for updates on these and other events this holiday season!
JSH 13.12.06
About Jackson. Jackson Harmeyer is a recent graduate of the Louisiana Scholars’ College—Louisiana’s designated honors college located on the campus of Northwestern State University. There, he studied music history, completing an undergraduate thesis entitled “Learning from the Past: The Influence of Johann Sebastian Bach upon the Soviet Composers.” Now living in Alexandria, he is one of the founding members of TicketCentral and will also be writing this season’s program notes for the Rapides Symphony Orchestra.