In the middle of almost every mall, shoppers can find someone sitting at a Grand piano playing holiday music. As shoppers gather around, not many imagine they could be listening to an up-and-coming pianist.

However, shoppers at a department store in Minneapolis, Minn., were not oblivious to their mall pianist, Lorie Line.

“Playing her own arrangements for shoppers, [Line] quickly distinguished herself and drew crowds who urged her to record an album,” according to Line’s press release. “The rest is history.”

Since Line’s days of playing in department stores, she has made her name known as one of two female artists in the growing genre of new age music.

Under her independent label, Time Line Productions, Inc., Line has released 14 recordings, including her two recent releases — “Open House,” an album of intimate piano arrangements recorded in her home, and “Home for the Holidays,” a compilation of her three “Sharing the Season Albums” — sold more than a million albums, helped produce her PBS special, “Lorie Line Live!,” and gained a loyal listening audience.

And, after these successes, Line has recently launched her 1997 Holiday Concert Tour where Line and her Pop Chamber Orchestra will stop in 31 cities to play 43 shows in 40 days.

Line’s fans, as well as those who enjoy Celtic music, will be attending sold-out performances with bells on — literally.

“Last year, I asked fans to bring their jingle bells and play along,” Line said in a press release. “Everyone had such a great time that we’re again inviting fans to ‘be there with bells on.’ It seems we’ve started a new holiday tradition.”

Line’s 1997 Holiday Concert Tour will be bringing audiences traditional holiday favorites with a spin as she adds harmonicas, African percussion, the banjo, Renaissance woodwinds, strings, horns, bagpipes and Irish whistles to her own unique piano-playing abilities.

Line and her Pop Chamber Orchestra will “treat fans to everything from rock-n-roll to jazz to gospel to classical holiday renditions interspersed with audience requests and a few other surprises,” according to a press release.

Line will be making her fourth stop in Ames Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. in Stephens Auditorium.

Tickets are $26.50 and $30.50 and are available through the Iowa State Center and all TicketMaster locations.