The Hometown Holiday Show is back! Join us on Saturday, December 21, at 7:30 PM for another delightful evening of music and storytelling. Adult tickets are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Student tickets for ages 18 and under are $5. Add $4 per ticket and you can reserve your seat! Tickets can be purchased at Crossings, as well as online or by calling 507-732-7616. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
Pianist/accordionist Dan Chouinard and fiddle/mandolin player Peter Ostroushko headline a performance that also features a multitude of talented local performers.
This community-wide variety show and sing-along will feature performances by the Zumbrota-Mazeppa High School Jazz Band, a flute and cello duet, Irish soft shoe dancers from the Zumbrota Dance Studio, Rochester's Choral Arts Ensemble, and other fabulous acts by your neighbors! Concert goers will be greeted by carolers from Our Saviour's Lutheran Church.
This concert is a joint production between Crossings at Carnegie and the Zumbrota Area Arts Council to raise funds for improvements to the historic State Theatre. The theatre is an intimate venue whose vintage atmosphere is praised by audiences and performers alike. Planned renovations include weatherizing the exterior, restoration of interior finishes, upgrades in sound and lighting equipment, seating improvements, and an addition to the building for handicapped accessible restrooms, a larger lobby and dressing rooms.
Chouinard turns up regularly in Zumbrota playing a supporting role for performers like Ostroushko, Prudence Johnson, Ann Reed and others. Both he and Ostroushko are regular contributors to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion radio show.
Chouinard has hosted similar community-based holiday shows in Lanesboro every year since 2007, drawing on local talent to fill most of the show's roster of musicians and storytellers and always featuring a performer friend from the Twin Cities as a special guest. He regularly creates special programs which blend storytelling, interview and music, many of these for Minnesota Public Radio. He has dubbed Crossings “my favorite SE Minnesota haunt.”
Ostroushko, one of the finest mandolin and fiddle players in acoustic music, plays a rich ethnic mix of music, at the heart of which is his Ukrainian heritage. It’s a mixture of musical styles he calls “sluz duz,” a phrase roughly meaning “over the edge” or “off his rocker.” He has earned an international reputation as a versatile and dazzling musician and composer.
The State Theatre is located at 96 East 4th Street in Zumbrota.