Friday, December 10, 2004
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

'Holiday Celebration'
The Las Vegas Philharmonic will perform parts of the adventurous 'Hodie' along with lighter fare
By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

The Las Vegas Philharmonic performs its annual holiday concert this weekend amid Christmas decorations in Artemus Ham Hall at UNLV.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic performs its sixth annual holiday concert this weekend in Artemus Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Under the direction of music director Harold Weller, the Philharmonic will perform selections from Ralph Vaughan-Williams' "Hodie," featuring soprano Christine Seitz, baritone Tod Fitzpatrick and tenor Alphonse Anderson. Seasonal music, such as "Music from `Home Alone' " by John Williams and "A Christmas Festival" by Leroy Anderson, will be performed under the direction of the Philharmonic's associate conductor, Richard McGee.

Guest artists at the "Holiday Celebration" include the Las Vegas Master Singers, under the direction of Jocelyn Kaye Jensen, and The University Children's Chorale.

"Last year we took the venture into slightly more adventurous terrain in the first half of the concert," Weller says. "And it was well received by the audience. So we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to do that again with Vaughan-Williams' `Hodie.' "

The orchestra will not perform the entire work, but play a 40-minute selection from it.

The show is becoming a popular annual event. "A lot of people say it's their favorite concert of the season," Weller says.

All of the guest artists are from the UNLV faculty.

Seitz, who is director of the Opera Theatre at UNLV, directed Puccini's "Suor Angelica" and "Gianni Schicchi" and Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" for the university, where she also teaches voice and opera.

She also has sung with the Kentucky Opera, Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Los Angeles Opera, the Seattle Opera and the Manhattan Opera in New York.

Fitzpatrick, an assistant professor of music, has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the Utah Festival Opera Company and the Los Angeles Opera, where he was resident artist.

Anderson is associate professor of voice. He has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, and Poland's Warsaw Symphony and Krakow Symphony. Anderson sings with Opera Las Vegas and is a member of the American Spiritual Ensemble, a group of opera singers from the United States and Canada.

The Las Vegas Master Singers, founded in 1993 by Susan L. Johnson, consists of more than 80 singers and musicians -- many of them with music degrees, who have had jobs as teachers, choral directors, organists and pianists -- and a small group of dedicated vocalists.

Among the musical genres the group performs are sacred and secular choral music, jazz, folk, cowboy, spirituals, and barbershop.

Jensen took over as director of the group in 2002.

Local children from grades three through 12 make up the 100-voice University Children's Chorale. The group, founded in 2003, is directed by Jeff Kriske and is a partnership between the Clark County School District, private schools and UNLV.

Tickets are $25, $45 and $66.

A shuttle bus service will be available from Desert Willow Community Center in Henderson, 2020 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway, and the Starbright Theatre parking lot in Summerlin, 2215 Thomas Ryan Blvd. The buses leave at 6:20 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. Cost is $7 per person, or $42 for the season. Bus passes cannot be bought at the departure sites, but are available when buying tickets from the UNLV box office.

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Friday, December 03, 2004
Copyright @ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Country's Stars Align
The National Finals Rodeo brings an array of Nashville's biggest names to town
By DOUG ELFMAN
REVIEW-JOURNAL

"Redneck Woman" Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich headline a concert Wednesday at the House of Blues.

Bill Engvall

Larry the Cable Guy

Ron White

Country singer Trace Adkins sings Thursday at the Silverton.

Dolly Parton performs Tuesday at Caesars Palace.

The National Finals Rodeo rides into the Thomas & Mack Center all week. For music fans, that means a lot of country singers and comedians are swinging into venues around Las Vegas. A look at most of the lineups:

• Randy Travis sings at 9:30 p.m. today through Sunday at the Golden Nugget.

Travis just signed up to help a family buy a new home in Bakersfield, Calif., and to raise $60,000 so the family's kids can go to college.

Tickets cost $93.50 at the hotel, 129 E. Fremont St. To charge by phone, call 386-8100.

• Stand-up Bill Engvall puts comedy in the Stardust at 8:30 p.m. today and Saturday and Thursday through Dec. 11.

Engvall has been performing in other cities on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour with Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White. All of them but Foxworthy are performing separately during rodeo week.

Tickets cost $41.65-$47.15 at the box office, 3000 Las Vegas Blvd. South. To charge by phone, call 732-6325.

• Larry the Cable Guy performs stand-up at 7:30 and 11 p.m. tonight in the Mandalay Bay Theatre.

The comedian, whose real name is Dan Whitney, took heat recently for joking on the TV show "The View" that he was on the Aiken Diet, "where you pop in a Clay Aiken CD and try to keep food down." Whitney has insinuated that the fallout from "soccer moms" over the joke has been stupid.

Tickets cost $57.75 at the theater box office, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South, and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call 632-7580.

• Fremont Street stages free concerts by Steve Forde and the Flange 8-11 p.m. tonight and Saturday on its Third Street stage, and the TJ Weaver Band 8-11 p.m. tonight-Sunday on the First Street stage.

• Lonestar sings at 8 p.m. today at Whiskey Pete's in Primm.

Pitches for a previous concert this year claimed of the band's music: " `I'm Already There' has become a theme song for men and women in the military and their families. Victims of the 9-11 tragedy found comfort in the haunting `Not a Day Goes By.' Anyone who ever has been led by his or her heart can be mesmerized by `Amazed.' "

Tickets cost $27.45 at the box office at Buffalo Bill's Star of the Desert Arena and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call Ticketmaster at 474-4000.

• Brad Paisley and Pat Green perform in the Hilton Theater at 10:30 p.m. today through Sunday for $57.50-$68.50.

Paisley -- the singer of "I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)" and "He Didn't Have to Be" -- and Green are on the bill together while also sharing a duet, "College," on Green's new album, "Lucky Ones."

Tickets are available at the Hilton box office, 3000 Paradise Road, or charge by phone at 732-5755.

• The harmony-rich Ricochet performs at 2 p.m. today through Dec. 11 at the Stardust. Tickets cost $10.95 at the box office, 3000 Las Vegas Blvd. South. To charge by phone, call 732-6325.

• Terri Clark sings at 8 p.m. today and at 10 p.m. Saturday at Boulder Station.

Clark, a Canadian honky-tonk singer from a town called Medicine Hat, has a "Greatest Hits" album out, plus a new top single, "Girls Lie Too."

Tickets cost $28-$55 at the hotel's Boarding Pass Rewards Center, 4111 Boulder Highway, and at area malls. To charge by phone, call 547-5300.

• Tracy Lawrence sings at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.

Lawrence is not only the owner of 17 No. 1 country hits, he's also an advocate for stem-cell research. He joined the National Advisory Council for the Alzheimer's Association after his grandmother and his wife's grandmother died from the disease. But he doesn't talk politics onstage.

Tickets cost $37-$50 at the box office, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South, and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call 632-7600.

• Hal Ketchum sings at 8 p.m. Sunday at Whiskey Pete's in Primm.

Ketchum -- singer of "Small Town Saturday Night" and "Past the Point of Rescue" -- helped warm up an Iowa crowd for presidential nominee John Kerry.

Tickets cost $27.45 at the box office at Buffalo Bill's Star of the Desert Arena, 800-386-7867, and through Ticketmaster.

• Dolly Parton performs at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday at Caesars Palace. During her "Hello, I'm Dolly" tour, she tells a crowd that Elvis Presley almost recorded "I Will Always Love You," then sings the song next to a singer dressed as The King.

Tickets cost $59.09-$90.91 at the box office, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South, and through Ticketmaster.

• Gary Allan, Terminally Lonesome and Cross Canadian Ragweed perform at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the House of Blues.

Allan's wife died in October, and he asked that funeral donations be made to a cancer charity or the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Tickets cost $35-$50 at the box office and through Ticketmaster.

• Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson and John Nicholson and James Otto perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the House of Blues.

Big & Rich and Wilson have made the biggest splash in country music this year with their punk-ish songs (that is, punk for country music). Wilson's "Redneck Woman" put in-your-face crassness back into Nashville's slick country radio.

Tickets cost $50-$70 at the box office and through Ticketmaster.

• Several free events will be heard around the Strip. As part of one of them, Mark Holt and Kimberlee Holt Tully perform 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through Dec. 11 at the Excalibur at the Cowboy Heritage Artists and Photographer's Society's national art show and sale.

• Clay Walker performs Thursday through Dec. 11 at the Orleans Showroom. Walker, who has had multiple sclerosis for eight years, has also signed up, along with his band, to perform at MS bike tours to raise money to fight the disease.

Showtime is 10 p.m. Tickets cost $55-$82.50 at the hotel, 4500 W. Tropicana Ave., at any Coast Casinos box office, through OrleansArena.com, at area malls, or by phone at 365-7075.

• Sara Evans and Phil Vassar sing at 10:30 p.m. Thursday through Dec. 11 at the Hilton Theater.

Evans sang at the Republican National Convention. Her husband, Craig Schelske, lost a 2002 bid for Congress from Oregon, which they later talked about to the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

In October, Vassar's latest No. 1 hit, "In a Real Love," ended a two-week stand at No. 1 for George Strait's "I Hate Everything."

Tickets cost $57.50-$74 available at the Hilton box office, 3000 Paradise Road, or charge by phone at 732-5755.

• Trace Adkins sings at 10:30 p.m. Thursday through Dec. 11 at the Silverton.

Adkins, whose new single is called "Hot Mama," is on the cover of the latest issue of Tall Magazine. He's 6 feet 6 inches tall.

Tickets cost $49.49 at the box office, 3333 Blue Diamond Road, or charge by calling 914-8557.

• Comedian Rodney Carrington performs at 10 p.m. Dec. 10-11 at the MGM Grand Garden arena.

The Tulsa, Okla., stand-up arrives with a "Greatest Hits" CD in stores, and a TV sitcom named "Rodney" on ABC. (It's about a stand-up comedian.)

Tickets cost $55 at the box office, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South, and through Ticketmaster. To charge by phone, call 474-4000.

• Comedian Ron White performs Dec. 10 at the Mandalay Bay Theatre. Tickets cost $57.75. White has joked, "Other people learn things when I drink. Last night, a limo driver learned if I say I gotta yak, it doesn't mean I have a long-haired buffalo livin' in my back yard."

• Blue County and David Lee Murphy perform for free in Boulder Station at 8 p.m. on Dec. 10. Blue County sing "Good Little Girls" and "That's Cool."

• Keith Urban and Katrina Elam perform Dec. 11 at the House of Blues. Tickets, $42-$62, are sold out.

New York Times critic Jon Pareles classified the headliner this way in an Oct. 30 concert review:

"If Keith Urban had arrived in the 1980s, he would have been a mild rocker: an amiable, unthreatening guitar-slinger along the lines of Kenny Loggins. Now the same kind of music is classified as country, and Mr. Urban, who is 37, has made himself a country heartthrob."