Pasadena Symphony’s annual Holiday Candlelight concert returns to All Saints Church on Saturday, December 17, 2016. Having sold out the past five years in a row, the concert will offer two performances to meet community demand at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. The architecturally exquisite and acoustically sonorous All Saints Church, Pasadena’s equivalent of a European cathedral, provides the perfect setting to hear your holiday favorites – all performed by candlelight. Audiences are going to love each and every moment of this cherished holiday tradition.
Conductor Grant Cooper leads an array of choruses including the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, the Donald Brinegar Singers and the L.A. Bronze Handbell Ensemble, set against the backdrop of the Pasadena Symphony. Special guest Sarah Uriarte Berry will accompany the orchestra as vocalist. With countless Broadway credits under her belt including Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Diana in the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning Next To Normal and Les Miserables’ Eponine, Berry is sure to bring an unforgettable performance.
The program has something for everyone, from holiday classics to popular standards. Hear What Child is This?, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Jingle Bells, Hallelujah! and many more favorites. Top off the holiday season with lasting memories for the whole family. The venue will again offer fully individual assigned seating available throughout All Saints’ glorious interior, ensuring that the audience can enjoy their experience with ease and have a well-deserved break from the hustle and bustle of the season.
Tickets to Holiday Candlelight with the Pasadena Symphony are limited and will sell out. Reservations start at $20 and may be purchased either at pasadenasymphony-pops.org or by calling the box office at (626) 793-7172.
Holiday Candlelight tops off a blockbuster holiday season for the Pasadena Symphony, starting with the 49th Annual Holiday Look In Home Tour, December 3th and 4th. A showcase of Pasadena’s magnificent architecture both historical and new, the Holiday Look In offers an intimate tour of four distinctive homes in the Pasadena area, decorated for the holiday season in full floral regalia. Pasadena’s finest floral designers will adorn each home, including Drew Domenghini, Margit Holakoui, Ixora Floral Studio and Jacob Maarse. Visitors can take a relaxing stroll through the gardens, accompanied by music from Pasadena Symphony musicians, and shop to their heart’s content at the Holiday Look In Boutique, located at the Scottish Rite Cathedral, 150 N. Madison Ave in Pasadena.
Organized by the Women’s Committee of the Pasadena Symphony Association, proceeds from the Holiday Look In support the Pasadena Symphony and POPS annual concert series, as well as educational and community outreach programs including the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestras. Holiday Look In tickets are $35 and may be purchased at pasadenasymphony-pops.org, by calling (626) 793-7172, or at the Boutique. The location of the homes will be printed on each ticket.
About the Artists
About Grant Cooper
Born in New Zealand as the son of a professional opera singer, Cooper sang and acted in his first opera at age four and studied piano and music theory prior to college.
After completing his degree in pure mathematics at the University of Auckland, he traveled to the United States for further studies in music. His initial opportunities as a conductor grew from his colleagues’ invitations to lead them in larger chamber ensemble performances. His many guest conducting engagements have included the Houston Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, and Syracuse Opera, among many others. This year, he has made successful debut appearances with the Kennedy Center Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Prior to accepting his position as artistic director and conductor of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra in 2001, Cooper served as resident conductor of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for ten seasons. He also serves as artistic director of the annual Bach and Beyond festival in Fredonia, New York and as resident conductor of the Eastern Music Festival.
A commissioned composer, Cooper’s concert works include A Song of Longing, Though…, for soprano and orchestra and his ballet, On the Appalachian Trail, which was premiered in 2010 at Chautauqua. He recently completed a commission to write original film scores for two Charlie Chaplin movies and last year composed a chamber work on commission from the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Cooper is especially passionate about creating works designed to introduce young audiences to the orchestra and has created a substantial body of works for this purpose.
Cooper has recorded for Delos International, Atoll, Ode, Mark, and Kiwi Pacific recordings, and has the unique distinction of having CD recordings of himself as conductor, performer, and composer, all currently available in the catalog.
About Sarah Uriarte Berry
Sarah Uriarte Berry has enjoyed an extensive Broadway career, with several distinguished leading roles under her belt. Ms. Berry created the role of Franca in The Light in the Piazza for Lincoln Center Theater (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations.) She appeared as Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Eponine in Les Miserables, Nicola in Taboo, Diana in the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning Next To Normal, and in the title role for New York City Opera’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
Ms. Berry starred in the Royal National Tour of Carousel (Dramalogue Award Best Actress, Ovation nomination), Sunset Boulevard with Petula Clark, and the National Tour of Les Miserables. Regionally, she appeared in A Little Night Music at The Kennedy Center, Terrence McNally’s Master Class and Guys and Dolls, to name a few.
A busy concert artist, Sarah was a soloist at Carnegie Hall with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, among others. Ms. Berry recently debuted her one woman show, For The Love Of Judy with The Cape Symphony.
Broadway Cast recordings include The Light In The Piazza, Taboo, The Boys from Syracuse, Tenderloin, Bernstein’s Mass and her debut EP, For the Love of Judy. TV and film appearances include Law and Order CSI, Frontera, Pretty Bird, Six Degrees, the Dave Letterman Show, and The Light in the Piazza (PBS). Sarah is a graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
About the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus
Under Artistic Director Anne Tomlinson, the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus provides choral music education of the highest quality to young people who represent richly diverse racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds. The program ignites a love of singing and nurtures the full expression of each individual’s potential for artistic and personal excellence through the collaborative experience of choral music performance. Through the beauty of inspired and joyful singing, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus brings the transformative power of music to communities throughout Southern California, the nation and the world. Now in its 29th season—2014|2015: “Celebrating American Song…California and Beyond”—LACC serves more than 400 young singers from more than 50 communities throughout greater Los Angeles, reflecting in its membership the cultural and economic diversity of the region.
About the Donald Brinegar Singers
Donald Brinegar is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at Pasadena City College, Adjunct Professor of Choral Music and Voice at USC, and Associate Director of the Three-Summer Masters in Choral Conducting at CSULA. As Director of Choruses for PSO he works with the JPL Chorus and provides choruses for the summer pops programs. Internationally recognized as a tenor soloist and conductor, Brinegar has sung as soloist and prepared choruses for The LA Philharmonic, LA Chamber Orchestra, LA Microfest, Hollywood Bowl and Disney Concert Hall. His international appearances include 30 countries most recently teaching and performing in Costa Rica. A noted champion of the music of Morten Lauridsen he has two compact discs dedicated to the composers’ music.
About the L.A. Bronze Handbell Ensemble
Under the artistic direction of Alex Guebert, L.A. Bronze is an auditioned handbell concert choir creating performances of the highest caliber for the community. Their music making is exciting and uplifting, and audiences around Southern California have praised their concerts. The group is comprised of accomplished handbell musicians who are seeking challenging opportunities for making music, while providing educational opportunities for the handbell community. Our members come from all over the L. A. basin and include musicians, educators, administrators and other professionals.
About the Pasadena Symphony Association
Recent Acclaim for the Pasadena Symphony and POPS
“The Pasadena Symphony signals a new direction…teeming with vitality…dripping with opulent, sexy emotion.” Los Angeles Times.
“…full of pulsating energy from first note to last… the strings were lushly resonant, the wind principals were at the top of their games, and the brass rang out with gleaming vigor.” –Pasadena Star News.
Formed in 1928, the Pasadena Symphony and POPS is an ensemble of Hollywood’s most talented, sought after musicians. With extensive credits in the film, television, recording and orchestral industry, the artists of Pasadena Symphony and POPS are the most heard in the world.
The Pasadena Symphony and POPS performs in two of the most extraordinary venues in the United States: Ambassador Auditorium, known as the Carnegie Hall of the West, and the luxuriant Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden. Internationally recognized, Grammy-nominated conductor, David Lockington, serves as the Pasadena Symphony Association’s Music Director, with performance-practice specialist Nicholas McGegan serving as Principal Guest Conductor. The multi-platinum-selling, two-time Emmy and five-time Grammy Award-nominated entertainer dubbed “The Ambassador of the Great American Songbook,” Michael Feinstein, is the Principal Pops Conductor, who succeeded Marvin Hamlisch in the newly created Marvin Hamlisch Chair.
A hallmark of its robust education programs, the Pasadena Symphony Association has served the youth of the region for over five decades through the Pasadena Youth Symphony Orchestras (PYSO) comprised of five performing ensembles, with over 250 gifted 4th-12th grade students from more than 50 schools all over the Southern California region. The PYSO Symphony often performs on the popular television show GLEE.
The PSA provides people from all walks of life with powerful access points to the world of symphonic music.
