Holiday Highlights in Allen-Bradley Hall with Ryan Tani
David Lewellen
PUBLISHED
Tagged Under: Bradley Symphony Center, Chorus, Holiday Music, MSO Musicians
Ryan Tani fills the time before an interview at an East Side coffeehouse with the enormous spiral-bound score of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the score live with the film is coming up soon, and the MSO’s associate conductor is marking the score with colored pencils to prepare for his two rehearsals with the orchestra.
It’s a busy and eventful time of year for Tani. As well as the film, he is preparing for two weekends of holiday pops concerts, several weeknight runout concerts to surrounding cities, and he also recently served as cover conductor for Nicholas McGegan when the MSO performed Handel’s Messiah.
“It all sort of blends together,” he says, putting away the movie score. “You have to prepare well before it begins. Otherwise, you’ll be swallowed by the behemoth that is December.”
Tani is in his third season with the MSO, and thus his third time through the holiday whirlwind. “I understand why we do what we do,” he says. “I know how fun this can be, and I see everyone having a great time. It’s part of people’s holiday traditions.” To match the mood of the audience, he says, “I can break out the enthusiasm easily. I love the holiday season, and I love the enthusiasm.”
This is the second year that the MSO has scheduled two weekends of holiday pops concerts. “We want to establish a holiday tradition in Milwaukee, and people are responding to that,” says Bret Dorhout, vice president of artistic planning. That decision also meant moving Messiah to a subscription week in November, while maintaining the tradition of a holiday-themed movie on Thanksgiving weekend.
December is a big month for all arts organizations. Tani remembers going to The Nutcracker every year when he was growing up in Utah and singing sacred music with church choirs. “The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is not the only arts organization,” he said. “We’re part of an ecosystem. These things are traditions.”
Part of the MSO’s tradition is to perform Handel’s Messiah almost every year, but this year it was led by Baroque specialist and frequent visitor Nicholas McGegan. That perspective is useful to the orchestra and chorus, Tani says, to give them a chance to “tell the story differently.”
Home Alone 2 will be the first time Tani has conducted a John Williams score, after at least half a dozen other movies with the MSO. “It’s a very special kind of musical language that I love,” he says, with the use and elaboration of repeated themes, though not as obviously as in the Star Wars movies.
The Hometown Holiday Pops concerts, spread over two weekends, will feature vocalist LaKisha Jones, the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, and the Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble. Tani strives to balance the old favorites with a few things that might be new to the audience, and a few favorites of his own.
Even though the MSO now has the use of its own hall for the entire month, the symphony still schedules runout concerts in Brillion, Brookfield, and Cedarburg. “These communities enjoy having us,” Dorhout says. “We have the pops concerts downtown as our home base, but it’s exciting for those communities to have the Milwaukee Symphony come to their home.”
Tani will not conduct the score to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, for which the Riverside Theater hires the MSO independently, but it doesn’t represent much of a break for him. During that week, he will get his only rehearsal with the orchestra for the runout concerts and participate in music education programming in local schools.
The major difference between the holidays and the rest of the MSO’s calendar, he says, is the sheer number of public performances — but in any given week, he is probably preparing for several upcoming concerts anyway. The end of this year’s holiday marathon concludes with conducting Nino Rota’s score to The Godfather on Jan. 2-3.
All of the Pops and runout concerts include an audience singalong, which is a highlight for Tani, who studied singing earlier in his career. Leading the audience in holiday favorites is “a fun part of the season,” he says.
The holiday whirlwind helps to bring the orchestra closer together, Tani says, and it also builds relationships with the community. “I love the moment when we get to a new place and go onstage, and there are people you know in front of you,” he says. “We get to the venue, and I can turn on the joy and be there for the audience.”
