Okanagan Symphony Orchestra's "Yuletide Tales" wows jammed Cleland Theatre

The Okanagan Symphony Orchestra joined forces yesterday afternoon with the Okanagan Symphony Youth Chorus and bass-baritone narrator/vocalist Garry Gable for a grand Christmas-themed tour de force in front of a packed crowd at Penticton's Cleland Theatre.

It was called Yuletide Tales, and it was hugely impressive.

Under the capable direction of Rosemary Thompson, a dynamic presence who won over the audience with both her patter and her humour, the combined orchestra/chorus glided through the demanding set list like the well-oiled machine it is.

The final piece of the afternoon - a lengthy and fairly recent Gary Fry (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) musical adaptation of the famous 1952 Dylan Thomas prose - was indicative of the whimsical flavour of the performance.

In it, narrator Gable, perched upon a stool at the front of the stage, read aloud excerpts from Thomas' original work. Between and often simultaneously with the spoken word, the musicians around him would play and sing. The crowd reacted loudly throughout, most often with laughs and once to join in for "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."

Other selections included Albert Hague's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (essentially a soundtrack of the Dr. Suess Christmas classic) and Leroy Anderson's Christmas carol menagerie "Christmas Festival." Both are long, taxing pieces that ask much of all the performers.

There are Christmas concerts, and there are Christmas spectaculars. Saturday afternoon at Cleland Theatre, we witnessed the latter.