Wizards of Winter to conjure holiday memories
Submitted Photo
Wizards of Winter will bring their rockin’ performance to the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead 8 p.m. Dec. 9. Tickets are between $27 and $47.
Submitted Photo
Wizards of Winter will bring their rockin’ performance to the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead 8 p.m. Dec. 9. Tickets are between $27 and $47.
Wizards of Winter will bring their rockin’ performance to the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead 8 p.m. Dec. 9. Tickets are between $27 and $47.
The Wizards of Winter, Dec. 9, Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead. Doors open at 7 p.m. and show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $27-$47.
What started out as a fundraiser for a local food bank has now grown into an annual tour across the United States each holiday season, including a stop at the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead on Dec. 9.
And the Wizards of Winter wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We started actually as a benefit back in the height of the recession back in 2009, winter of 2010. Our local food pantry (in Frenchtown, New Jersey) was devastated. There was a line around the block and there was no food in the pantry,” said Scott Kelly, the musical director of Wizards of Winter. “My wife and I decided to get together with some local musicians and we decided to play some Christmas Music, some Trans-Siberian Orchestra music to raise some money. People kept on asking to buy our album, of course it didn’t exist because we were playing TSO music so we decided to write our own.”
Kelly said in 2011 the band decided to start showcasing their own music and in 2013, several original members of TSO left the band and ended up performing with Wizards of Winter.
“A bunch of original members had heard our music and wanted to join us so we had four original TSO members. Over the years we have had seven. Some had joined the band every year. It gets bigger every year, the band, the scope of the venues,” said Kelly. “We never had any plans other doing a couple of the benefit shows.”
Since its inception, Kelly said the band has raised over $100,000 for charities including The Wounded Warrior Project, Habitat of Humanity and more.
Currently, the band has two albums out.
“We are getting bigger as we go,” said Kelly.
For those who are not familiar with the music of Wizards of Winter or TSO, Kelly describes it as, “a combination of a lot of classical musical influences combined with traditional Christmas music and then it is expanded with progressive rock. It is really a blend of four different genera, if you want to add in the Broadway (component). We call it rock theater. There is a nod to traditional Christmas music. A lot of it, 90 percent of it, is completely original.”
While all of their music is greatly received by the crowd, there is one song in particular that strikes a chord with their audience.
“I think one of the biggest ones is a song that we call ‘March of the Metal Solders.’ It is a take off of the ‘March of the Toy Solders,’ but we have turned it into a metal progressive rock song and it is dedicated to the military. The lyrics in the middle of the song are done in Latin and they are the slogans of the different branches of the military. It says, ‘Always faithful. We will defend. Not self but country. These colors will never run,'” said Kelly. “We dedicate all the sales of the song to the Wounded Warrior Project or Intrepid Project.”
Kelly said that Wizards of Winter performances offer something for everyone.
“Our audience ranges (in age) from 8 to 80. You will find rock ballads that grandma can like, to sort of heavy progressive rock material for the heavy rockers in the audience,” he said. “We make it snow on the audience and we kick out beach balls to the kids. It turns out to be a real family event. It really is a multi-sensory experience.”
In addition to the music, there is a story that surrounds the Wizards of Winter concert.
“Our story is about a person going in search for the true meaning of Christmas. We take the audience on a journey on the ‘mystical flier’ and you go inside a snow globe on Christmas Eve,” said Kelly.
On this journey the audience will visit the first Christmas, the North Pole and New York City.
“We try to encompass all the different feelings that people have at Christmas. No everyone is happy. Some are sort of melancholy at Christmas,” said Kelly. “We try to wrap up all the emotions there are. It is an emotional roller coaster that the audience goes on from happy to sad to introspective and the like.”
But, at the end of the performance, Kelly wants the audience not only have an experience, but to walk away with something more.
“We want the audience to leave with the Christmas spirit. That it goes beyond the religious connotations to family and loved ones and giving back to the community,” he said. “We have a song at the end of the show called ‘The Spirit of Christmas’ and that really wraps it all together.”
Tickets to the 8 p.m. performance are between $27 and $47 and can be purchased through ticketfly.com.