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Wizards of Winter: intimate, Trans-Siberian experience

By Diana Lasko dlasko@heraldstandard.Com 6 min read
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Wizards of Winter perform their original music with former members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in their Trans-Siberian Experience at Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

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Wizards of Winter will bring their Trans-Siberian Experience to Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

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Wizards of Winter will bring their intimate Trans-Siberian Experience to Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

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Wizards of Winter will bring their Trans-Siberian Experience to Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

DETAILS:

Trans-Siberian Experience: Wizards of Winter

Where: Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, Munhall

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 13

Admission: $25-$45

Tickets: librarymusichall.com

Wizards of Winter offer a Trans-Siberian experience in an intimate setting.

The progressive-rock band will bring their holiday show and rock opera to the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall, 8 p.m. Dec. 13.

Wizards of Winter self-titled debut was a holiday prog-rock throwback meant to convey optimism and wonderment with songs like “Just Believe,” and the crunch of metal with recordings like “The Journey,” according to the band’s founder keyboardist Scott Kelly.

“It’s a Christmas rock opera,” explains Kelly. “You travel on a musical journey aboard the metaphysical “Artic Flyer” in search of the meaning of Christmas. If you’re a science fiction fan, it’s like Doctor Who, where you board his Tardis and travel anywhere in space and time. Some spaces are happy, some are melancholy; our music encompasses the vast range of feelings people experience during the holidays. We take you on a two-and-a-half-hour emotional roller coaster, from ballads to prog-metal.”

Kelly and his wife, Sharon, a vocalist and flutist, founded the band in 2009, as a way to give back to their community by performing a benefit concert for a food pantry in their hometown of Pittstown, New Jersey. As a fan, Kelly was keenly aware of the success that symphonic-rock monolith Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) had acquired with their perennial Christmas pageantry and decided in 2010 to create a TSO tribute project ensemble to give back to the community with several performances of the holiday music made popular by the TSO.

The events were a success and the Wizards were able to help the struggling food bank. But in the process, something else happened.

“We did a couple of shows that first year and people wanted to buy our album,” said Kelly. “We didn’t have one.”

The seed was planted.

In 2011 the band embarked on writing their own holiday rock opera, “Tales Beneath a Northern Star”. What was once a tribute group created solely to call attention to a charity became an ensemble of its own musical design.

“For many, Christmas rock music is associated with TSO or even Mannheim Steamroller,” said Kelly. “There is room for something in between the extravagant production of TSO and more reserved presentation of Mannheim. It is here that I see the Wizards fit.”

The Wizards lineup put together by the Kelly’s and and bassist Steve Ratchen includes vocalist Vinny Jiovino, guitarists Fred Gorhau (formerly of heavy-metal outfit Explorer) and TW Durfy, drummer Tommy Ference, pianist/vocalist Mary McIntyre, violinist Natalia Nierezka, as well as former TSO members Guy LeMonnier (vocals), Tony Gaynor (narration) and vocalist Joe Cerisan, who believe lightning has struck twice for them. Kelly describes the ensemble as “musicians with Masters degrees to regular self-taught rock guys that can play at the level that is required.”

Creating and recording their own music became an extraordinary experience for the 12 musicians according to Sharon Kelly.

“I never anticipated writing and performing our own songs would be so emotional. They are like one of your own children. You create it, nurture it, protect it and then when ready, you let it fly on its own. People in the audience, feeling the same raw emotion that inspired us to write the songs is very moving,” she stated. “The whole experience of bringing music to people is very rewarding. Especially since we see such a wide range of age in the people that attend our shows. Our music crosses generational boundaries. I personally find our young audience so inspiring. Reaching out their hand to me when I am singing in the audience, seeing them smile, it’s very humbling. I have had countless school age children come up to me after the show, excited to share with me that they play the flute too. They usually leave saying they hope to get the opportunity to play flute in a “cool” band like the Wizards some day. Those young people are why this is so meaningful and rewarding to me. During a Wizards performance, there are many interesting highlights. We like crowd interaction; members go out into the audience, which really makes for a great performing dynamic.

Wizards live performances are very interactive and very much about the audience and the fans and creating a new holiday tradition.

“Having a theater full of people on their feet, knowing the lyrics to songs you’ve written or arranged is quite humbling,” Ratchen notes. “We make it a point to stay as long as necessary after every show until we’ve met, chatted with and accommodated every person who’s kind enough to have waited for us. I believe I speak for the entire organization when I say none of us consider it an obligation, but rather a privilege.”

Kelly believes rock music has been through a lot of permutations over five decades and technological advancements and the Internet has allowed fans to interface with all of that musical history. To that end, Wizards Of Winter are simultaneously recalling a heyday of classically tinged rock that’s part older listeners’ tradition, while also amping it up in aggressive ways appealing to young rock fans according to him. And Kelly hopes that Wizards will continue to bridge generations for something that is both commercially viable and honest. But more importantly, to make some gesture toward how music should be respected than merely browsed–a stance Kelly keeps a hard line on.

“I do feel that way,” he said “You can feel it in the audiences that come to our shows. They range from 8 to 80. We try to create music that has the pageantry of the late-’70s, early-’80s rock shows and present ourselves accordingly. You’re not going to find us showing up to play in jeans and a T-shirt. Then again, I don’t want to get on the gratuitous prog side of things where you’re changing time signatures just for the hell of it and making things prog madness. I want things to be accessible without being a mindless pop band.”

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