Celebrate all of the holidays

Zuri Jerdon

This weekend the Des Moines Symphony will be helping central Iowans celebrate all of the holidays. Sunday, the Des Moines Symphony will present the “Snowflake Celebrations Family Concert,” a performance that will feature music from Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.

The concert, which is the first of its kind in Des Moines, will feature special guests the Chorale of the Des Moines Children’s Choruses and the Des Moines Choral Society. The former is the international touring choir of the Des Moines Children’s Choruses, Inc.; it consists of six choruses of auditioned children, ages eight to 15 from seven counties in central Iowa. The Choral Society is a 100-member auditioned volunteer group made up of singers from throughout central Iowa, now in its 16th season.

The concert will also feature a special appearance by Susan Hsu, a 1995 graduate of Ames High School, who won the 1995 Young Artists Competition, presented annually by the Des Moines Symphony Guild.

Before the concert, The Simpson College brass quintet and an octet from the Simpson College Madrigal Singers will perform. There will also be a brief performance by Paul Engler, a juggler.

Tickets for the concert will be $5, $10 or $15 for adults, a price Paul Zastrow, director of public relations and marketing, says is very low given the quality of music the concertgoers will enjoy.

Zastrow would also like to stress that getting all the different groups together was quite difficult, and the Symphony is very proud to be including all the different cultures of its concertgoing audience.