HOMETOWN HOLIDAY POPS

Saturday, December 14, 2024 at 2:30 pm

Saturday, December 14, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Friday, December 20, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 2:30 pm

Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Alli Mauzey, soprano & narrator

Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Timothy Benson, assistant chorus director

PROGRAM

VARIOUS/arr. Sean O’Loughlin

Christmas Canticles

Joy to the World

O Christmas Tree

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Silent Night

GEORGES BIZET

Suite No. 2 from L’Arlésienne

IV. Farandole

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

DONALD FRASER

This Christmastide (Jessye’s Carol)

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

EDWARD POLA AND GEORGE WYLE/arr. David Clydesdale

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Alli Mauzey, soprano

MEL TORMÉ AND ROBERT WELLS/RALPH BLANE AND HUGH MARTIN/arr. Chris Waldin

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Alli Mauzey, soprano

TRADITIONAL/arr. Bud Wayne Bisbee

A German Music Box

Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Suite from The Nutcracker, Op. 71a

IIb. Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy

IIc. Russian Dance (Trepak)

RANDOL ALAN BASS

The Night Before Christmas

Alli Mauzey, narrator

INTERMISSION

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Hodie [This Day]

I. Prologue

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

JAMES LORD PIERPONT/arr. Paul Hemmer

Jingle Bells à la Barbara

Alli Mauzey, soprano

JERRY HERMAN/arr. Robert Wendel

We Need a Little Christmas

Alli Mauzey, soprano

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

KIM GANNON, WALTER KENT, AND SAMUEL RAM/arr. Dewells Barton

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Alli Mauzey, soprano

TRADITIONAL

Bellsong Fantasy

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble

LEROY ANDERSON

Sleigh Ride

VARIOUS/arr. John Finnegan

Christmas Sing-along Jingle Bells

Joy to the World

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Silent Night

Deck the Halls

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Alli Mauzey, soprano

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

TRADITIONAL/arr. Gary Fry

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble

Hometown Holiday Pops is presented by WE ENERGIES FOUNDATION. This weekend’s media sponsor is WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All programs are subject to change.

Guest Artist Biographies

ALLI MAUZEY

Alli Mauzey was most recently seen starring on Broadway in the critically acclaimed world premiere of Kimberly Akimbo. Before that, Mauzey starred as Ernestina in the Tony Award-winning revival of Hello, Dolly! Other Broadway credits include Glinda in Wicked, a role she also performed to critical acclaim on the First National Tour and with the San Francisco company; Lenora in the musical Cry-Baby, for which she won a Theatre World Award and was nominated for a Drama League Award; and Brenda in Hairspray (both on Broadway and in the original company of the First National Tour). Mauzey also originated the role of Lenora in the preBroadway production of Cry-Baby at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego (Theatre Critics Circle Award). Other New York credits include New York City Center’s Encores! series in the role of Minerva in The Golden Apple as well as Sydney in It’s a Bird...It’s a Plane...It’s Superman and the OffBroadway production of Red Eye of Love. Regionally, she has appeared as Mallory in City of Angels for Reprise! in Los Angeles, Snookie in 110 in the Shade at the Pasadena Playhouse, and Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors at The Muny, for which she was nominated for a Kevin Kline Award.

Mauzey has also had the pleasure of performing with symphony orchestras across the country, including playing Ellie in Show Boat with the New York Philharmonic and the title role in Cinderella alongside the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, benefiting the charity Show Hope. Recent and upcoming engagements include the Philly Pops, Pittsburgh Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Maryland Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Maui Pops Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony, Sarasota Symphony, Tucson Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Shreveport Symphony, Desert Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Missouri Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Idaho State Civic Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Orlando Philharmonic, North Carolina Symphony, Akron Symphony, Houston Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, Allentown Symphony, Lincoln Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, and Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen (Germany). She has a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in drama and a minor in music.

MILWAUKEE HANDBELL ENSEMBLE

Over the past 21 years, the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble has gained wide popularity in our community and beyond. MHE is an auditioned community handbell ensemble under the direction of Jana Larson with 13 ringers who play 73 handbells and 73 hand chimes.

Within these 21 years, MHE has become known for their astonishing, memorized performances, for premiering new arrangements of popular music, and for being the recording choir for American Guild of English Handbell Ringers (AGEHR) Publishing. They have been guest performers with the Midwest Vocal Express, Bel Canto Chorus, Present Music, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus. MHE has performed numerous times with the MSO under conductors Doc Severinsen, Stuart Chafetz, Jeff Tyzik, and Andreas Delfs. In December 2023, MHE was invited to perform at the halftime show for the Milwaukee Bucks.

MHE has also expanded their reach by taking mini-tours to Minnesota, South Dakota, and Michigan, performing by invitation at the Area 7 Handbell Festival in Sioux Falls in 2016 and playing the closing concert of the National Seminar for the Handbell Musicians of America in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2018.

In May of 2013, the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble became a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Their mission is “To further the art of handbell ringing by educating, inspiring, and informing others of the art form” by showcasing advanced handbell repertoire while serving as a musical resource for the Milwaukee metropolitan area and beyond.

MHE has recorded two CDs: An American Sampler (including boogie-woogie blues, jazz, gospel, and more) and their most recent release, An MHE Christmas Celebration

TIMOTHY BENSON

Timothy Benson has been the assistant director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus since 1994 and has prepared the chorus for several of its previous Holiday Pops concerts.

He has served as director of music and organist at several churches since playing his first mass at age 10. A Milwaukee native, he began playing the piano at the age of five before taking up pipe organ studies. His former teachers include S. Theophane Hytrek, Christopher Herrick, and Peter le Huray.

Graduate studies in music took Benson to England, where he studied musical composition at Cambridge University. Teachers included Paul Patterson and Robin Holloway, in addition to his private studies in Wales with William Mathias. A summer session in Croydon at the Royal School of Church Music included further studies in organ with Peter Hurford and Stephen Cleobury and vocal pedagogy and choral conducting with Philip Ledger and George Guest. That summer saw Benson as the guest organist in a performance of J. S. Bach’s Magnificat for Her Majesty, the Queen Mother.

Upon returning to the U.S., he joined the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, then under the directorship of its founder, Margaret Hawkins, who asked him to pursue yet further graduate studies with her at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. While there, he studied choral conducting with Hawkins, orchestral conducting with Daniel Forlano, and vocal pedagogy with Signe Quale.

Benson enjoys the life of working with the wonderful musicians of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, bringing the soul-enriching beauty of music to the wider community, providing great organ music and choral direction to churches in the area, and maintaining a small but thriving number of both organ and voice students.