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Celebrate holidays with annual Vienna in Clarksville concert at APSU Dec. 11

        CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – For more than 100 years, the Vienna Philharmonic has set aside New Year’s Day as a time to perform uplifting holiday pieces by Johann Strauss and his family. It has become one of the great traditions in all of music, earning a sizable television audience in America in recent years, but a new, similar tradition has taken hold in Clarksville.

        CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – For more than 100 years, the Vienna Philharmonic has set aside New Year’s Day as a time to perform uplifting holiday pieces by Johann Strauss and his family. It has become one of the great traditions in all of music, earning a sizable television audience in America in recent years, but a new, similar tradition has taken hold in Clarksville.

       For the last two years, Dr. Gregory Wolynec, associate professor of music at Austin Peay State University, has brought the festivities to town a little earlier with the APSU Symphony Orchestra’s annual “Vienna in Clarksville: A Holiday Celebration” concert.

      This year’s third annual performance begins at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 11, in the campus’ Music/Mass Communication Building. The concert is free and open to the public. 

      “The program is based on concerts that have been done by the Vienna Philharmonic for the better part of the last century,” Wolynec said. “It involves overtures, waltzes, polkas and other novelty pieces by the Strauss family, most notably Johann Strauss Jr., who was also known as the ‘Waltz King.’ It’s a different take on the holidays.”

      The performances have been a great success in the community, with audiences clapping along with the traditional “Radetzky March” to close the program.

            “It’s a great way to celebrate the holidays,” Wolynec said.

            For more information on the concert, contact the APSU Department of Music at 221-7818.