Smith Center celebrating first holiday season with host of performances

Silent night? Not at downtown's Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which celebrates its first holiday season with a varied lineup of celebratory concerts.

Las Vegas-based pianist Danny Wright proved there's no place like "Home for the Holidays" last weekend with a Reynolds Hall concert featuring Mirage headliner Terry Fator.

In the next few weeks, however, everybody from the Las Vegas Philharmonic to smooth-jazz sax man Dave Koz to Rat Pack daughter Deana Martin gets into the act.

So do all four Smith Center venues: the 2,050-seat Reynolds Hall, the more intimate Cabaret Jazz and Troesh Studio Theater spaces - and Symphony Park, site of a free outdoor concert Sunday featuring Broadway favorite Linda Eder.

"We want to establish Symphony Park as part of the holiday experience," explains Smith Center President Myron Martin. "We're trying to start some new traditions."

So, apparently, are Smith Center patrons, who snapped up the free Symphony Park tickets - more than 2,000 of them - "in 15 minutes," Myron says. (A few $50 table seats, which include food and beverage service, may still be available; call The Smith Center box office at 749-2000.)

But even if you don't have tickets to Sunday evening's free show, there are plenty of other musical options that provide "a little something for everyone," Martin notes.

Resident Cabaret Jazz headliner Clint Holmes' "Holmes for the Holidays" begins a three-performance run tonight; it was nearing sold-out status last week.

And on Saturday in Reynolds Hall, the Las Vegas Philharmonic's "A Very Vegas Holiday" presents an eclectic lineup featuring, among others, two Las Vegas mayors named Goodman and a jazz quartet composed of faculty members from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

To say nothing of Foothill High School's drumline giving a new cadence to (what else?) "Little Drummer Boy."

As guest conductor Robert Bernhardt says of the latter, tongue firmly in cheek, "Big shocker! Spoiler alert!"

But that's not the only offbeat "Drummer Boy" Smith Center patrons will hear this season.

Arriving Dec. 18 in Reynolds Hall, Koz's 15th Christmas tour features guest artist Sheila E.'s version of "Little Drummer Girl," which Koz says is "the most fun I have in our show."

After all, "how many times have we heard that song?" Koz says. "But never like this."

And "that's the key to remaining fresh," the saxophonist says. "Not to be afraid to try new things out."

That's definitely the case with Saturday's Philharmonic concert, which includes eight different elements, according to guest conductor Bernhardt, the Louisville Orchestra's principal pops conductor.

Among them: Mayor Carolyn Goodman and her immediate predecessor (and husband), Oscar Goodman, who will narrate "The Night Before Christmas."

Singers Travis Cloer (alias "Jersey Boys' " Frankie Valli) and Niki Scalera (whose credits include "We Will Rock You" at Paris Las Vegas) perform separately and together.

And UNLV's director of jazz studies, pianist David Loeb , joins three fellow faculty members - Nathan Tanouye on trombone, Tom Warrington on bass and John Abraham on drums - for a jazz-quartet-meets-orchestra version of cool-jazz pioneer Claude Thornhill's big-band classic "Snowfall," arranged by longtime Philharmonic trombonist Tanouye.

"It's a little obscure," Loeb says of "Snowfall," adding that "the chances of someone else (performing) it were very slim."

Saturday's Philharmonic concerts also feature a Hanukkah medley - and those are hard to come by, Bernhardt says.

"The problem is, all the songs are children's songs," he says. But Saturday's suite provides "a full orchestral romp through traditional Hanukkah songs" - and a "refreshing" addition to a traditional holiday concert.

A traditional holiday concert, he adds, that includes such gotta-be-there selections as "Deck the Halls" and "Sleigh Ride," along with "a little bit of 'Nutcracker' music" and a sing-along sequence where the entire audience can join in on favorite carols.

Despite the familiarity of most holiday music, Koz's annual concert gives him and his fellow musicians (including pianist David Benoit) "a chance every year to paint a new picture, using the existing paint."

Meanwhile, in Cabaret Jazz, "Holmes for the Holidays" sets the stage for a more intimate, but no less heartfelt, musical celebration.

"It's nice to be home," Holmes says of his monthly Smith Center gig, partly because "there have been a lot of times when I wasn't home" for the holidays.

In keeping with the season's friends-and-family spirit, Holmes' show includes duets with wife Kelly Clinton-Holmes and granddaughter Asia.

"And hopefully, Bill Fayne" - Holmes' longtime musical collaborator - "will come by to continue a tradition of 35 years and sing 'O Holy Night,' " Holmes adds, citing a tradition that began in his boyhood, when he would sing the beloved carol with his opera singer mother.

Another longtime Holmes holiday tradition: a rendition of "William the Angel," about a broken-winged angel.

"I love the story, I love the theatricality," he explains. "It's a new song because most people don't know it - but people who know me do."

Yet even such holiday perennials as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" receive a musical makeover, Holmes says.

"We kinda twist them all," he notes. "It's important for me to put my own stamp on just about everything I do."

In the process, however, Holmes aims to retain the warmth that's a vital component of any holiday-season show.

"It's the one show of the year that really is about family," he maintains. "Not in a corny way, but in kind of a warm way."

And when Holmes says warm, he means it. Literally.

"They shouldn't serve wine at this show," he says. "They should serve hot chocolate."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.