Gile Series: Dan & Claudia Zanes Holiday Sing-A-Long

This unique holiday show is a musical celebration inspired by the Christmas sing-alongs that Grammy Award winner Dan Zanes and jazz vocalist / music therapist Claudia Zanes experienced every year while growing up in New Hampshire. That was then, and the theme was Christmas. This is now and the 21^st century version of these legendary parties includes Christmas classics, of course, but there’s so much more.

The Holiday Sing Along songbook - printed and distributed to the audience members – includes seasonal numbers from a variety of traditions, languages, and locations. Songs from Puerto Rico, Korea, Wales, Tunisia, Haiti, and Washington DC are represented alongside reimagined versions of the ones we all know and love such as “Let it Snow,” “Silent Night,” and “Deck the Halls.” Hannukah, Korean New Year, Kwanzaa, and Winter Solstice are also celebrated.

For this show, Smithsonian Folkways recording artists Dan + Claudia have taken their electric folk sound to a fresh place with multi-instrumentalist and children’s music star Elena Moon Park. The result is an inviting blend of three voices with guitar, violin, trumpet, harmonica, flute, spoons, percussion, and mandolin that artfully brings the intimate feeling of the living room to the big stage.

This trio embodies the festive far-reaching spirit of the season and the legacy of intergenerational communal music making. It’s in these songs that we can renew our connections to each other and imagine the best of life’s possibilities for the year ahead.

The Holiday Sing Along is an ideal sensory friendly presentation.