Locke

KAHULUI — The annual Holiday Pops concert on Sunday, Dec. 13, will bring the season to life with carols, popular holiday music and classical favorites in a festive, family-friendly atmosphere.

The Maui Pops Orchestra and guest artist Maui soprano Leighanna Locke will perform at 3:30 p.m. at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater.

“You may feel you need a warm coat,” conductor Jim Durham joked about Waldteufel’s “smooth and familiar ‘Skater’s Waltz.’ ” 

And Leopold Stokowski’s arrangement of Bach’s ”Toccata and Fugue” “makes the orchestra sound like a great pipe organ.”

As music director of the Maui Pops Orchestra, Durham is primary conductor and also responsible for coordinating all the music the orchestra performs.

The recipient of the 2009 Maui County Commission on Culture and the Arts’ Pundy Yokouchi Award for his work with the Maui Pops Orchestra, Durham is one of the founders of the Maui Pops. He is committed to keeping symphonic music accessible and exciting for Maui residents and guests.

Several of the pieces Durham has chosen for this concert will feature Locke, whose most recent credits include Maria in “The Sound of Music” with Maui OnStage, Marian the Librarian in Maui Academy of Performing Arts’ production of “The Music Man” and Mabel in MAPA’s “Pirates of Penzance.”

Locke, a drama and voice teacher for MAPA, is a private vocal instructor.

Locke’s pieces for the Holiday Pops concert will include “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (“in the style of Brenda Lee,” Durham said) and her special arrangement of “Silent Night,” accompanied by harpist Kristine Snyder.

Locke’s main solo piece will be ”Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from “Phantom of the Opera.”

Maui Pops Orchestra is a nonprofit organization formed in 2004 to offer Maui audiences “light classics in paradise.” For tickets, call 242-7469.