Holidays With Saginaw’s Stars

An important artistic tradition in the Great Lakes Bay always guaranteed to add musical sparkle to the Christmas season is the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra’s annual Holiday Pops Concert, which each year mixes a tasteful blend of classic yuletide favorites with guest performances by contemporary popular regional artists to concoct a host of musical surprises to lift our spirits over the holiday season.

For this year’s holiday excursion, the SBSO is teaming up with Saginaw’s 3 Tenors, Todd Michael Hall, Billy Petty, and Charles Allen on Tuesday, Dec. 9^th, to perform not only familiar holiday favorites, including Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up and Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, but also original compositions by the featured soloists, the annual Christmas Singalong, and as an added treat - side-by-side performances with the Saginaw Bay Youth Orchestra.

“I’ve been following a bit of a format with our annual Holiday Pops Concert because it resonates when we include local talent,” reflects SBSO Maestro & Musical Director Fouad Fakhouri.. “People never get tired of hearing the talent we have in Saginaw performing holiday pop music, but this year I wanted to go one step beyond because it’s been awhile since we’ve had the  Saginaw Bay Youth Orchestra perform side-by-side with the complete SBSO orchestra, so this particular concert will feature two segments, and after intermission the youth orchestra will perform side-by-side with the adults.”

“As for our featured guest vocal soloists, we’ve had Todd Michael Hall perform with us two times in the past, Billy Petty performed with us along with his wife Amy Petty about five or six years ago, and this year I thought I would invite Charles Allen. I've never worked with Charles before, but I have worked with his mother Sharrie Williams. The three tenors will perform two songs separatey. One will be a holiday pop Christmas song and another song of their own choosing, and then they'll come together to perform a couple of duets in addition to one piece that's a big finale.”

“My goal this year was to create something really big, so my inspiration was the popularity of the Classical supergroup ‘The Three Tenors’, that consisted of Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras.  Because each of our three featured vocalists are great local artists, I thought bringing them together would be a wonderful attraction,”  explains Fakhouri. “In terms of song selections, I always allow a lot of leeway for the singers to pick what they like to perform, because I want them to feel comfortable.”

“For instance, with Todd Michael Hall, he always picks one or possibly 2 selections that are rock related because that's his forte and those are the types of songs he typically sings. In this case, he is doing Whitesnake’s Here We Go, and then he’ll do a  duet with Billy Petty on Damn Yankees’ song High Enough. With Charles Allen, one of the pieces he wanted to perform and I encouraged him to do is a piece he wrote and composed that we arranged specifically for this particular concert called Sleepwalking, which Catherine McMichael arranged.”

Because of the segment featuring the Youth Orchestra following the intermission at this year’s Holiday Pops concert, both segments will feature their own finales. The one with the Youth Orchestra will be Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo from West Side Story; and the second finale will consist of Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini. “People will recognize both of these pieces as soon as they hear them, especially if you’ve watched America’s Got Talent or any of these shows.”

As they celebrate their 90^th Season, it can be a daunting task to develop a holiday pops concert to not only engage audiences with the holiday music they expect to hear while also avoiding repetition by offering them something both unique and different they won’t have the opportunity to experience anywhere else..

This year’s Holiday with Saginaw’s Stars’ promises to deliver exactly what it promises it that department.

Holiday With Saginaw’s Stars featuring the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra with the Saginaw Bay Youth Orchestra and Charles Allen, Billy Petty, and Todd Michael Hall takes place on Tuesday, December 9^th at Saginaw’s historic Temple Theatre at 7:30 PM. Tickets start at only $20.00 and are available by visiting SaginawBayOrchestra.com or TempleTheatre.com or phoning the box office at 989.754.7469