The Santa Barbara Symphony’s New Year’s Eve Pops Concert — from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Granada Theatre — is an island of, maybe not tranquility, but certainly sweetness and mellowness, in the middle of an evening famous for its noise: the eye of the social hurricane that is New Year’s Eve.
It’s an ideal after-dinner entertainment, and a proffered breathing spell before plunging into the rigors of a “real” New Year’s Eve party.
The symphony is conducted by Bob Bernhardt, with the accomplished pianist Michael Chertock joining in for some rhapsodic Gershwin.
We’ll hear John Philip Sousa’s march, “Semper Fidelis”; the “March of the Toreadors” from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen; Franz von Suppe’s hearty perennial, the Light Cavalry Overture; Leroy Anderson’s “First Day of Spring” and “The Typewriter”; George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue; excerpts from two John Williams scores, the Suite from Far and Away and “Viktor’s Tale” from The Terminal; and Williams’ arrangement of selections from Fiddler on the Roof; A Marvin Hamlisch Celebration and Pops Hoedown.
Tickets to the party are $38 to $113 and can be purchased from the Granada box office at 805.899.2222 or online by clicking here.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.