Music Beat: Celebrate The Season
By Peter Jacobi H-T columnist
Nov 24, 2019 Updated Nov 25, 2019

One of my favorite musical events of the year comes along this week, on Friday afternoon and evening: the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra’s post-Thanksgiving salute to the holidays soon to come, the “Celebrate the Season” concert, given in conjunction with the city’s Canopy of Lights celebration on the Monroe County Courthouse square.

Actually it is a twice-given happening: a one-hour version at 5:30 for families with younger children and a 90-minute version at 8. Both are at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, just a few steps away from where the holiday lights will be turned on to bring after-dark sunshine into the air and into our hearts.

I like to attend because the music is always played well and with seeming joy. The purpose is not to show off, to exhibit skills, although the performing musicians do so just by engaging in this delightful exercise, but because the atmosphere engendered is warm, comfortable, uplifting, and all sorts of such good feelings.

It is the orchestra’s gift to the community, and it always leaves me smiling. The chatter I hear when the songs have ended and we who came to hear head outside into the joyous tumult on the streets, the talk is so very positive, so expressive of satisfaction.

Actually, “Celebrate the Season” is one of those entertainments I often refer to as unreviewable. Yes, I will probably have something to tell you afterwards, but these concerts are presents which one accepts and for which one gives thanks. Certainly, I do.

This year’s concerts have a special significance. They come as part of the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra’s 50th season. Donna Lafferty, the orchestra’s executive director and one of its trombonists, says the BSO’s programming committee decided that marking half a century of musical togetherness deserves recognition.

“To that end,” she explains, “we have programmed several pieces that do not relate to the holidays but to what was an annual event for us, ‘Night in Old Vienna.’ While we were forced to stop doing that long-beloved program about 10 years ago for lack of financial viability, many of our regular audience members have fond memories of the event and never miss a chance to remind us about how much it meant to them. So, this is a way to say ‘Thank you’ to those people and give them a chance to relive the experience, even if just for a little while.”

Donna Lafferty also expressed excitement about new community partnerships: “We’ll have members of the Voces Novae choir singing carols in front of the theater as people arrive. We’ll also feature the Quarryland Men’s Chorus during the 8 o’clock program, singing Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas.’”

And, please take note, if you cannot attend the Bloomington shows on Friday, the BSO has been invited to give an encore performance next Sunday at the new Brown County Music Center. The facility, says Donna, “is amazing: a huge theater with not a bad seat in the house and equipped with all sorts of high tech equipment to accommodate all of the different acts they’ve been programming already.”

Both programs, the shorter and the longer, contain holiday favorites, such as “A Canadian Brass Christmas,” “Carol of the Bells,” a sing-along, and Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride.” They’ll also offer an orchestrated reading of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas), to be narrated by the outgoing executive director of the Buskirk-Chumley, Danielle McClelland.

“We invited Danielle to join us this year for many reasons,” says Donna. “She is a valued partner who made our move to the BCT for our performances possible and provided incredibly helpful insight into creating more of an event rather than a ‘simple’ concert. She is an icon of the Bloomington community, not just for her work with the theater but also because of her support for and mentorship of upcoming performing artists. And, most important, she is a good friend to many of us. We’re reluctant to say goodbye to her, but we’re also excited to see what she will be doing next.”

Both programs also include a symphonic adaptation of the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a reading of the Trepak from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite,” and sundry items, all familiar.

The evening concert adds three more pieces. One is “A Rose for Ruth Ann,” written by BSO tuba player Paul Hartin, notes Donna, as tribute to Hillyard and Ruth Ann Trubitt, “two of the BSO’s most enduring, influential, and beloved board members, who saw the orchestra through some very lean years. Ruth Ann also was instrumental in making ‘Night in Old Vienna’ such a mainstay in our programming.

“’We wish You a Klezmer Christmas,’” Donna says, “was composed by one of our violinists, Lauren Bernofsky, and is a cute, sweet and extremely clever melding of traditional carols with the catchy sounds of Klezmer music. And the third piece, is Tabakov’s Bulgarian Dance Number 2. Another of our violinists, Simona Staneva, is from Bulgaria and has been very homesick. Her visa status makes it difficult for her to go back, so we’re bringing a bit of Bulgaria to her for the holidays.”

The artistic director and conductor of the BSO, Alejandro Gomez Guillen, a charming host and authoritative musician, will be on the podium to direct the festivities and make the music “a warm and enthusiastic invitation to join us in celebrating the season while traveling across the globe, back through time, and into the stories of our imagination.”