TSO gets festive for holiday concert
The Texarkana Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas at the Perot concert presents a varied repertoire to help usher in the Christmas spirit on Sunday, Dec. 9. Starting at 4 p.m. at the Perot Theatre, the TSO will present a repertoire that includes “The Sounds of Christmas,” “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” “Little Drummer Boy” and a Christmas sing-along. TSO musicians are joined by the TSO Chamber Singers, Texarkana Jazz Orchestra and Santa Claus himself.
Texarkana’s own Don Howren serves as guest conductor for the festivities. Also, the winner of the 8th annual Celebrity Conductor Competition will lead the orchestra in a number.
“We’ve done different things each time. We’ve always had some sort of choir or singers on stage,” said Andrew Clark, the TSO’s executive director. Dancers have been included some years, too. This year the TSO is headed in a new direction, based on audience feedback, to take a break from that and focus more on the music.
The TSO will also go with a smaller chorus, too. “With Don being our guest conductor, he put together a great set of singers who we call the TSO Chamber Singers,” Clark said.
The Texarkana Jazz Orchestra is another new facet to this year’s Christmas at the Perot concert. The TSO partnered with them for a Scott Joplin and ragtime concert a few years ago.
“They’ll be on stage playing with the orchestra for several numbers, then doing some on their own. And so it will be sort of a combination of both,” Clark said. Dick Eckstein leads the TJO players. It’s something completely different for the TSO Christmas.
“It lets us do some jazzier settings of some Christmas standards,” Clark said. The
orchestra strings will have a role in this pairing, he said.
Added the guest conductor, “It will be a program of real diversity because there will be everything from very melodic, string-acclimated music to your jazz, big band sound. So there’s something there for everyone.”
Howren’s selections for the TSO Chamber singers are people he’s known from so many years in local music, plus singers recommended to him. “Lots of different backgrounds and wonderful people,” he said. The guest conductor is looking forward to leading them all on stage.
“I’m very excited, I really am,” Howren said, admitting he was nervous when he was first asked. But he has years of experience to guide him, having served as minister of music at First Baptist Church for three decades before he retired. He had an orchestra at First Baptist, although it wasn’t nearly the size of the TSO. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music.
“It’s very exciting for me to have the opportunity to do this,” Howren said. Many of the musicians in the TSO he had in his church orchestra.
“It will be fun to make those reacquaintances,” said Howren, who was a founding board member for the TSO and now serves as board president.
Of course, it’s not Christmas without Santa. He will arrive to a jazzy piece sometime during the program’s latter stages.
This year’s celebrity conductor challenge saw four Texarkanians raise money for the TSO as they sought votes in recent months. The competitors are Jennifer Doan, Mike Ingram, Omar Ishaq and Lisa Shoalmire. Votes can be cast through the concert intermission.
“Once that’s done, we tally them all and we will announce in the same fashion that we’ve always done, bringing all of the conductors on stage to thank them publicly, announcing the grand total … and then announcing the winner,” Clark said.
The winner conducts the TSO in a rendition of “Sleigh Ride.”