Holiday Pops! 

The Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra is spreading holiday cheer, loud and bold, throughout the region with multiple performances of three different programs that span contemporary pop favorites to traditional classics. The concerts run from Dec. 10-22.

The Holiday Pops journey begins with conductor Troy Webdell leading the orchestra, with Fort Wayne bass-baritone Ian Williams, performing family concerts in Wabash, Warsaw, and at Trine University in Angola. There will be opportunities for you and your family to sing along.

In the middle, there’s a unique concert of holiday chamber music in Auburn.

Then there’s the big show, five performances at the Auer Performance Hall at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where Andrew Constantine will conduct the orchestra and present singer-songwriter and cabaret diva Ann Hampton Callaway, with choirs and dancers, Santa Claus, and more sing-alongs.

Off to a running start

We spoke with Webdell, Family Concert conductor, and Adrian Mann, principal bass player and the orchestra’s resident composer, arranger, and librarian, to get an overview of these ambitious forays into family fun.

“Holiday pops” is an American tradition started by the conductor Arthur Fiedler with the Boston Pops orchestra in the 1940s, and some of the most beloved music you’ll hear comes from that era. But of course there will be traditional sacred carols and anthems, along with new pop standards and suites from your favorite holiday films in recent years.

In the regional, or “run-out,” series of concerts in Wabash, Warsaw, and Angola, Webdell is happy to present Fort Wayne favorite Williams. 

“I wanted to have Ian sing because I think he’s a really a wonderful up-and-coming vocal artist,” Webdell said. 

Williams was a member of Heartland Sings for several years and was featured in last summer’s “A Night at the Opera.” 

On the light side, he’ll be singing “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” as only a basso profundo can, but he’ll also give us David Foster’s “Grown-up Christmas List,” which you may know from Amy Grant’s 1992 recording, and French composer Adolphe Adam’s profoundly spiritual “O Holy Night” from 1852. He’ll be leading the audience in a rousing sing-along medley of Christmas carols you know by heart.

For the instrumental side, Webdell said, “I’ve done a lot of holiday programs over the years and there’s just some things, some standards that people expect.” 

Leroy Anderson’s “A Christmas Festival,” from 1950, is one of those Boston Pops favorites. His original piece “Sleigh Ride” is another classic. 

Webdell is going for “things that bring the audience back to their childhood.”

“And maybe some people aren’t coming to Fort Wayne to hear the Philharmonic play the actual Nutcracker (with the Fort Wayne Ballet),” Webdell said, so the orchestra is giving them four charming movements from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.

There’s more music than we can list, but a highlight for me will be the suite from the 2004 movie The Polar Express, by Alan Silvestri, which your kids will love as much as you do.

Symphony of steel

On Thursday, Dec. 12, the Philharmonic will perform A Symphony of Steel at Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.

It was a success last year, so the Philharmonic are returning to Auburn with a unique event for one night only. 

It’s called A Symphony of Steel, but there’s no actual symphony. Rather, 11 chamber groups made of Philharmonic players, from the Calhoun Brass Quintet to the Violin Duo, along with the 34-voice Philharmonic Chorus, will take turns performing in four galleries in the museum. Audience members can stroll through the exhibits of classic cars while each group plays pop arrangements of holiday classics and American pieces written during the golden age of automobiles: 1903-1924. 

Throughout the year, the Philharmonic chamber groups perform in community centers, retirement homes, and the like all over the region, so you may have seen one or two of them before. A Symphony of Steel is an opportunity to hear all the groups, plus the chorus, in one place.

The main show

The really big extravaganza kicks off Thursday, Dec. 19, at the Philharmonic’s home base, PFW’s Auer Performance Hall. 

Constantine is totally jazzed, pun intended, to accompany singer-songwriter Callaway along with the orchestra’s instrumental favorites. 

The Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chorale,  directed by Benjamin Rivera, will join in, with the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir, directed by Jonathan Busarow. Choreographer Mandie Kolkman will bring the Fort Wayne Dance Collective. James Stover is the stage director. Of course Santa and Mrs. Claus will be there, too.

Callaway, born in Chicago, broke out on the cabaret scene in New York in the 1990s as a performer and recording artist. As a songwriter, she’s penned tracks for some of the biggest names in the business. She recorded her first major-label Christmas album, This Christmas, in 1998. She will be leading the Philharmonic, singing her own original holiday songs and interpreting the classics, too.

Mann has enjoyed connecting with Callaway and preparing the scores, but says the most interesting part of these concerts won’t be on sheet music.

“She does a feature where she sits at the piano and has the audience call out tunes, and then she improvises on the spot,” Mann said. 

So get ready to call out some favorites that you haven’t heard the orchestra play that night.

To run down some highlights, Constantine will lead the orchestra and choirs in Mann’s new arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” a local staple. Another rather new piece is arranger Bob Krogstad’s Christmas at the Movies, a medley of themes from Home Alone, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, The Polar Express, A Christmas Story, and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

You’ll hear a lot more classics like Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer,” and the World War II sentimental favorite “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Kent, Gannon, and Ram.

Perhaps the pinnacle of the concert will be Constantine leading the choirs and orchestra in the “Hallelujah” chorus from G.F. Handel’s Messiah from 1741.

The Philharmonic will have more than 140 musicians, singers, and dancers on the Auer stage to bring you and your family holiday cheer. We hope to see you there.