SSO will present The Snowman, a silent film with symphony accompaniment along with the performance of some favorite holiday songs, at 7:30 p.m. on December 13 at Juanita K Hammons Hall.
“[The Snowman] was an Oscar nominated short film, and it's this beautiful little piece [from 1982]. We did this maybe 10 years ago, and people loved it, and it fits well with our season of Bingeworthy so we thought it was time to bring it back," said Kyle Wiley Pickett, musical director and coordinator for SSO.
The show will begin with an opener and perform to the roughly 26-minute long film, then dedicate the other half of the performance to famous holiday music such as Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson and Boston Pops.
“Programming for the holiday concert is one of the hardest parts of my year," said Pickett. “You would think it would be easy, but people want to hear the old favorites at this time of year, but you don't want to just do the same thing over and over again. So you've got to find different ways to present the classics and maybe introduce something that's a little bit new.”
“Like The Snowman. It’s not new, but it's not something we do every year. It’s something that happens every now and then,” he said.
Another thing that SSO is doing that will make the performance stand out from other Christmas music is by having a role traditionally performed by young male sopranos be performed by the Springfield Girls Choir, which includes roughly 50 performers. The SGC will also be performing a set of songs written by John Williams for the original Home Alone movie.
“I mean, you know, again, for the holiday concerts, I like to kind of rotate the collaborations around some years. I invite the high school choirs to join us. We've had Springfield Boys Choir before with us. We've had some of the local adult choirs at a holiday concert," he said, "so this time we've got the girls choir back with us, and I'm excited to have them.”
For more information, or to purchase tickets visit springfieldmosymphony.org.
