Free and family friendly, the concert will feature music from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival, Mykola Leontovych’s Carol of the Bells, and an orchestral suite from Disney’s Frozen.
Directed by Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Nadya Potemkina, the Wesleyan University Orchestra is comprised of students, faculty, and members of the Middletown community. Together they are a group of roughly 50 musicians.
“It’s a really friendly atmosphere,” said violinist Isabel Csete ’18. “Everyone is here to have fun and to do what they love.”
This is the Orchestra’s second concert of the semester, and markedly different from their first, which featured a selection of movements from several large-scale symphonic works of a more serious tone than the holiday tunes of this Saturday’s concert.
“I want my students to be able to learn all styles and genres of music,” said Professor Potemkina. “You have to play The Christmas Festival at least once in your life as a performer in a symphony orchestra. It’s a staple of the popular repertoire.”
“It’s songs we know,” said clarinetist Rachel Rosenman ’17. “And it’s fun to sing along.”
Ms. Potemkina will invite the audience to sing along during The Christmas Festival, a collection of famous carols.
Alongside these holiday oldies is a suit from Disney’s recent film Frozen, released in 2013.
“There are a lot of different characters in Frozen, and you hear them in the different songs we play,” said Ms. Rosenman. “All of their voices come out in the music.”
“Frozen is really fun because it’s so new,” said clarinetist David Lopez-Wade ’18. “Everyone knows it.”
“It’s a cheerful concert,” said Professor Potemkina.
What better way to kick off the holiday season?
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