Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra holiday concert brings together youth choirs

The Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra's "Home for the Holidays" offers, appropriate for the coming winter, a smorgasbord of goodies for the Moody Concert Hall.

The Monday show will feature excerpts from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's "Messiah," "Sleigh Ride," "Carol of the Bells," a holiday pop-song singalong and the voices of the Alabama Choir School, UA Choirs and singers from the Tuscaloosa County High School choral program.

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"With the TSO joined by all of these students, we are going to have almost 200 singers on stage," said Natassia Perrine, executive director of the symphony, "so it is just going to be a wall of joy and sound."

The Alabama Choir School has performed on the holiday favorite for many years, but new to the symphony's Christmas concert are the TCHS group, and the University of Alabama's Treble Chorus, University Chorale and TTBB (tenor bass) Chorus, all conducted by Morgan Luttig, assistant professor in the UA School of Music, and director of choral activities. Luttig's other group, the University Singers, just completed its "Hilaritas" show on Dec. 3, so Monday's concert will give the other three a showcase.

"She just came in last year, and is doing phenomenal things over at Moody," Perrine said.

Perrine and Ginny Coleman, director of TCHS's choral groups, earned their masters' together in music education.

"She and her students are just doing such phenomenal work, so we wanted to highlight them," Perrine said. "She's got just an army of kids."

Last month, TCHS singers were selected by representatives for the band Foreigner, on its Feels Like the Last Time tour stop in Tuscaloosa, to sing behind the band on its No. 1 hit "I Want to Know What Love Is," so they've been on a bigger stage, at the venue recently renamed the Mercedes-Benz Amphitheater. But Monday's concert gives them an opportunity to sing with other kids their ages in the Alabama Choir School, and join the slightly bigger kids from UA.

Perrine hopes this continues the TSO's ongoing mission to engage younger performers and supporters.

"We have a laser focus on the pre-K to 12(th grade) group, not just exposing them to the art, but making them part of the music," she said.

For the first time on the holiday concert, there'll be singers in the first half of the program, with Alabama Choir School and TCHS joining for "Waltz of the Snowflakes," the act one finale from "Nutcracker."

Each of the groups will get spotlights to shine, with the symphony, and a cappella. There's also a Hanukkah festival overture on the program, and the night's closer with be Gary Fry's "A World of Joy," expressing joy to the world in various languages, beginning with an African segment, with the first verse sung in Swahili and English, a second verse in Spanish, and a rousing Celtic reel for the third and final verse.

Still it's hard to beat the singalong portion for pure energy, Perrine said.

"It really is so cool to hear 1,000 people singing together and clapping along with all the orchestra, and with all the kids and students on stage, that's gonna be my absolute favorite part," Perrine said.

And of course it's all led by maestro Adam Flatt, the TSO's music director and conductor, who was chosen in 2011 for the post after a two-year-long search, in part because of his experience and openness to performing with choral and other groups.

"The educational aspect is clearly important to me," said Perrine, who devotes time to video and in-person educational segments that fall under the general heading of Music with Ms. P. Videos are available on YouTube and Instagram, and she also takes lessons and music to live gatherings at public libraries and elsewhere.

"It's our key to longevity and relevance and growth. And to be able to do this in such a spirited and joyful way for a holiday concert, impacting the lives of kids, hopefully bringing them and their families in to see what's so important to them, I really want this (concert) to feel like an invitation," she said.

Monday's "Home for the Holidays" starts at 7 p.m., in the Moody Concert Hall, on the UA campus. Tickets range from $30 to $40, with students admitted free. For more, see www.tsoonline.org, or call 205-752-5515.

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa Symphony joins youth choirs for 'Home for the Holidays'