This duo helps to make the season bright with ‘Merry, Merry Chicago!’

The Christmas season seems to start earlier every year, with yuletide carols on the radio while jack-o-lanterns are still on the front steps. But the ubiquity of holiday music doesn’t faze Alastair Willis, who will be conducting the annual revue Merry, Merry Chicago!, featuring members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Chorus. That’s because there is so much music to choose from, Willis believes, and so many new and interesting arrangements that keep holiday standards fresh. 

“I love Christmas music, and it’s really just part of our life and our culture,” said Willis, conductor and music director of the South Bend (Ind.) Symphony Orchestra, who's returning for a second consecutive year to lead Merry, Merry Chicago!, which has six performances Dec. 16-23. “What really makes the CSO’s Merry, Merry Chicago! special is that we really search to find great arrangements for an orchestra the quality of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.” 

Willis pointed out that they're not the arrangements likely to be heard on the radio. “And being at a concert and hearing something live and being able to see it as well is just a completely different and far better experience than when you’re shopping and hear ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ in the dairy aisle for the hundredth time.”

Only a few works will return from last year's program. “We like to have a holiday theme, mixed with new pieces, perhaps non-traditional pieces that you might not expect,” Willis said, ”which fit the evening and the run of the concert.”

The program will reflect a wide range of moods and styles, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s Polonaise from the opera Christmas Eve, Johann Strauss Jr.’s overture to The Gypsy Baron and the regal “Zadok the Priest” and “For Unto Us a Child Is Born,” by George Frideric Handel. There are also arrangements of “Joy to the World,” “White Christmas” and “Sleigh Ride.” 

One piece he’s especially excited about this year is Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances, since he has Scottish heritage (though he jokes that won't be appearing in a kilt). “It’s festive and it’s fun and it’s a great showcase for the orchestra,” Willis said. “We look outside the holiday box, if you will, for the program.”

As always, there will also be sing-along segments for the audience.

Asked to name his own favorite carols, Willis said he loves them all, but names “Ding Dong Merrily on High,” since it’s “so much fun to sing,” and “I’m a stickler for standards like ‘O, Come All Ye Faithful.’ ” But it’s hard to name just one because his “favorites keep changing.”

Cheryl Frazes Hill, longtime associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and chorus director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, agrees that picking a favorite Christmas piece is like picking a “favorite child.”

“The challenge in this kind of concert is there’s a variety of styles and eras that are part of the program,” said Frazes Hill, who is preparing the 100-plus Chicago Symphony Chorus for Merry, Merry Chicago! For example, the show opens with a “huge fanfare” arrangement of “Joy to the World,” and soon after is Handel’s “For Unto Us a Child is Born,” which presents “a very different approach vocally.”

“You’re constantly switching gears,” Frazes Hill said. “This kind of switching of styles is something that is very demanding for singers. Fortunately, we have a wonderful group of professional vocalists who are very capable of doing such things.”

Audience members at a holiday concert often arrive with the mindset that they want to have a good time with their family and friends. “So it’s our obligation to make sure that we are having a good time, because an audience can’t experience anything the people on the stage aren’t experiencing,” she said. “We have to convey that sense of excitement.”

But that won’t be difficult. “We’re like everyone else — we enjoy the season, we enjoy the music.” Everyone missed coming together for holiday concerts during the pandemic. “There’s some real joy about the fact that we’re now coming together to celebrate the holidays.”