Find your holiday spirit at ‘Tis the Season

The Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra will perform holiday carols, holiday hits and the beloved 'Nutcracker Suite,' along with Hamilton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Hamilton Children’s Choir, and the Hamilton Academy of Performing Arts. You can even do some holiday shopping!

How to get into the holiday spirit:

Step 1. Get tickets for the HPO’s ‘Tis the Season annual holiday concert on Dec. 13. 
Step 2. Attend the concert.

It’s that simple. This concert of the season’s musical favourites features our own professional musicians of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra sharing the stage with the city’s most talented young performers from the Hamilton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Hamilton Children’s Choir, and the Hamilton Academy of Performing Arts. The concert is filled with favourite carols, holiday hits, medleys and Tchaikovsky’s famous Nutcracker Suite about toys coming to life. 

Before Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1892) ballet premiered, he made a smaller Nutcracker Suite for concert performances and conducted it himself. Interestingly, the suite took off right away but it took a while for the ballet itself to become popular. The first complete performance outside Russia wasn’t until 1934 in the U.K. Today, many ballet companies make over 40 per cent of their income just from performing The Nutcracker. It funds many of their other projects throughout the year. Music from The Nutcracker became widely familiar after its inclusion in Disney’s Fantasia. 

Tchaikovsky was one of the first Russian classical composers, or to be more precise, “Romantic” composers. Russians weren’t yet composing their own music in the Classical period (1750-1820) of Mozart’s time. Tchaikovsky was the first graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which was the first music school in Russia, established in 1862. For the initial part of his career, Tchaikovsky’s music didn’t fit comfortably in either the European scene or the Russian. For the Europeans, he was too Russian. For the Russians, too European. Eventually tastes changed and Tchaikovsky was heralded as a musical hero everywhere. 

Before this acceptance, he saw some success as a composer but was not happy teaching at the Moscow Conservatory. Following a failed marriage lasting only weeks, he spent years as a nomad in self-exile, composing and travelling around Europe. At about the same time as his marriage, a wealthy widow contacted him by letter and became his patron. He could now become a full-time freelance composer, living where he desired and composing what he wanted. The relationship with his patron was odd in that they wrote over 1,200 intimate letters to each other yet never met, on her insistence.  

By the time Tchaikovsky wrote The Nutcracker in 1892, he was a national hero. The suite premiered nine months before the full ballet and was an instant hit. His famous “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy” used a new instrument he had heard on his travels in Paris: the celesta. You might recognize this sparkly keyboard instrument from “Hedwig’s Theme” of the John Williams Harry Potter soundtrack. Other favourites in the suite include “Russian Dance (Trepak)” and “Waltz of the Flowers,” though all of the numbers are adored and recognizable. The HPO will perform the Nutcracker Suite alongside ballet dancers from the Hamilton Academy of Performing Arts.

The concert features a couple of popular numbers by American composer Leroy Anderson, including his brilliant musical storytelling work “Sleigh Ride.” Composed during a heat wave in 1946, Anderson recreates a winter sleigh ride with the sound of horse hooves, sleigh bells and whip, all using orchestral instruments. The horse whinny by the trumpets at the end of the piece is worth the price of admission. Anderson had an unusual background for a composer of light, cute concert pieces written for the Boston Pops Orchestra. He was a Harvard grad, spoke nine languages, and worked for U.S. counterintelligence in World War II. He was asked to become Swedish military attaché but turned it down to become a composer. His skillfully written, witty music is not to be missed. The concert opens with his piece “A Christmas Festival.”

This concert also has its share of holiday hits, such as “Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Let It Snow!” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” The world’s first commercially successful Christmas song was written by a Jewish immigrant composer, Irving Berlin, while living in the U.S. The song was called “White Christmas” and the Bing Crosby version became the world’s bestselling single. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film Holiday Inn of 1942. In 1999, National Public Radio in the U.S. compiled a list of the 100 most important American works of the 20th century. “White Christmas” came in at No. 2 after “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

The Hamilton Children’s Choir and the Hamilton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra will be performing many of these hits with the HPO. It is truly heartwarming to see all ages on stage together and this opportunity provides these young performers with tremendous mentorship and motivation for their artistic paths. Come early for the Prelude Holiday Market on the mezzanine starting at 5:30 p.m. and make your way into the hall at 6:30 p.m. for the pre-concert talk to hear from the directors of all the performing organizations. 

PRELUDE MARKET @ HPO

Holiday shopping before the concert!

50+ vendors bringing you everything from artwork, jewellery, vintage gifts, home goods, prints & stationery, bath & body, textiles, ceramics, consumables, curiosities & more.

Saturday, Dec. 13
Public market: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
$3 at the door in support of Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra
Kids 12 & under are free
Exclusive ‘Tis the Season ticket holder market: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.