by Jarrett Hoffman
‘TIS THE SEASON:
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas officially occupy single dates in the calendar, but that doesn’t stop anyone from squeezing all the juice they can from the festivities, maybe for as long as a full month each. No complaints here, especially in 2020.
On that note, several of the area’s musicians and arts organizations are beyond just revving their engines when it comes to Christmas music.
Today at noon in a Virtual Brownbag Concert from Trinity Cathedral, vocalist Jennifer Cochran and The Gateway Band start things off with some carols for “A Jazzy Christmas.”
Fun videos are also in full swing. Watch Firelands Symphony principal horn Greg Hillis use his instrument to celebrate yesterday’s snowfall in Chardon here. (He kept things going today with another popular snowy tune.)
And Opus 216 has been at it for a while already. Check out their recent collaboration with vocalist Ashley Nemeh in a cover of Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You on YouTube, then head to their Facebook page to scroll through a seasonal #PandemicPlaylist in which violinist Ariel Clayton Karas plays a variety of holiday favorites.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Composer and baritone Harry Thacker Burleigh and soprano Maria Callas were born on December 2 in 1866 and 1923, respectively, while composer Aaron Copland passed away on this date in 1990.
Thinking of Christmas and love (that other potent ingredient in holiday music, as Mariah Carey demonstrates above), one opera that comes to mind is Puccini’s La bohème. In particular, I’m thinking of the moment when Rodolfo meets Mimi on Christmas Eve entirely by chance — a knock on the door when he happened to stay home for a moment longer than his friends. Let’s just say that things don’t quite end happily, but sticking with that promising moment, here’s Callas singing the Act I aria Sì, mi chiamano Mimì.