Christmas is the time of year families, friends, co-workers and long lost relatives get together to spend time together, but the most important thing isn’t the Christmas carols, it’s the time spent together.
“ As of mid-November, we’re starting to play the Christmas parties,” said Tim Carter, guitariest for local classic rock band the Chevelles adding corporate Christmas parties keep the band hopping throughout the holiday season.
“That’s the thing about having a set with such depth (they play over 200 songs from the ’50s to today,) is that it allows us to play weddings, bars, curling tournaments and Christmas parties. It’s nice to be able to target the show to a specific audience,” he continued.
Families make New West part of their Christmas traditions
Even though they aren’t doing a Christmas show this year, per se, for many years New West Theatre has been a big part of a lot of families’ Christmas celebrations.
“We’re not going to premiere a dark and disturbing drama during Christmas,” said New West Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hanson.
“People are looking for a fun way to spend the holidays, so we ensure the December production is light and fun— something you can take your extended family to as well as their friends and co-workers,” he continued adding while there won’t be any Christmas carols involved with the show, there will be plenty of familiar pop, rock, and country hits in their December production of Glitz, as well as New West’s hilarious comedy. It runs Dec. 17-31.
“ It’s certainly a festive time. A lot of families have their Christmas traditions. A lot of families, friends and co-workers’ Christmas traditions includes New West Theatre,” he said adding some years they will do an actual Christmas production like “Scrooge,” or a “Christmas Carol.”
“We wind up the production with a special New Year’s Eve performance. It’s huge party on New Year’s Eve in Lethbridge. There is champagne in the lobby and it almost always sells out,” he said their other production of Munsch, which opens up on Boxing Day is another consistent sell out.
“Marooned With Munsch,” runs Dec. 26- Jan. 8.
“These stories have become a runaway hit for us for the last few seasons. They have really captivating characters. We feel really fortunate we sell out virtually every production. That’s a lot of pressure, but it’s fun pressure to know audiences have such high expectations for us to really put the best foot forward,” he said.
A Christmas Carol
There are a couple versions of “A Christmas Carol” happening this week.
The McGill Music and Arts School is performing their dinner theatre version, Dec. 10 at 260 McGill Blvd. West at the Maranatha Church. Doors open at 6 p.m.
And the Lethbridge Sunrise Rotary Club are presenting members of the Lethbridge Playgoers plus Mark Campbell, Brenda Forrest, Carol Laycock, George Mann and David Mikuliak performing readings of a Christmas Carol, Dec.10 at the Southminster United Church at 7 p.m.
There will also be perfomances by the LCI Jazz Choir, Gilbert Patterson Choir, Simply Harp and Friends (Karin Barg, Amber Bareham and George Fowler) plus the University of Lethbridge Faculty Brass Quintet (with Michael Kaufman and Bente Hansen). Admission is $10 with all proceeds being donated to the Lethbridge and Interfaith Food Banks.
If you do want to hear Christmas carols, the annual Mayor’s Christmas concert is always a popular draw.
The Lethbridge Gold Community Band plays all your favourites.
This year it takes place at the Southminster United Church, Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
“It’s all Christmas music. The mayor will be the MC. We do it every year. This will be our sixteenth,” said Jo Ann Whitehead one of the Gold Community band’s clarinet players adding the Silver band also performs at the show.
“It will be different every Christmas. It’s just a fun, relaxing Christmasy atmosphere. It’s just a really great way to start the Christmas season,” she said adding there are poinsettas at the door and door prizes.
“We wear our black uniforms and it just sets the season off right.
Some organizations, like the Southern Accord Chorus started Christmas celebrations in November.
Thanks to an overwhelming response to their ‘recruitment campaign,’ earlier this year, the all female chorus held a big Christmas show featuring their new vocalists at the College Drive Community Church, at 2 p.m., Nov. 27.
“We thought it would be a fun way to give people a feel for what we do on stage and introduce our 24 new members,” said director Carol Quan.
“We don’t just want to do Christmas music, but there will be some. We’re learning ‘Santa Baby,” she said adding they entire group will perform as well as solos and and the group’s quartet will be performing a couple numbers.
“It’s great and we’re giving them a lot of opportunities to perform,” Quan continued adding they scheduled their Christmas concert in November so it wouldn’t interfere with the plethora of school Christmas concerts happening throughout December. They were pleased to have the Hibikiya Drummers on the bill as well.
The 15 member group performed two 10 minute sets of traditional Japanese drumming.
“We’ll have about four or five songs per set. We haven’t decided yet,” said drummer Rita Medve adding the members come “from all walks of life.”
“For me, it ( playing with the Hibiyaki drummers,) is like a form of stress relief,” she said adding drumming is very physical, plus she enjoys the social aspect of the group. They rehearse weekly and perform at a variety of community events includng ArtsDays in September as well as the Dragon Boat Races and Canada Day celebrations as well as this Christmas concert.
The other big Christmas concert is The Lethbridge Symphony’s second master’s series of the season.
They celebrated the onset of advent, Dec. 4 by recounting the Christmas story through music. Bach’s “Magnificat” as well as Handel’s “Messiah — Part One” at Southminster United Church.
The concert featured the University of Lethbridge Singers and conductor Janet Youngdahl.
A version of this article also appeared in the December 2010 issue of Bridge Magazine
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