Holiday traditions continue at The Soraya with a wide variety of seven performances for all ages. The Holiday series begins on Dec. 7 and 8 with the ninth edition of The Soraya’s original production, “Nochebuena: A Christmas Spectacular” — featuring Ballet Folklórico de Los Ángeles and Mariachi Pueblo Viejo. In the 2024-25 Season, Camila Fernández, the daughter of Mexican Singer Alejandro Fernández, and granddaughter of the late great Vicente Fernández, joins as a special guest.
On Dec. 12, Michelle Dorrance returns to The Soraya (following her 2023 debut in Turn it Out with Tiler Peck) with “Dorrance Dance: The Nutcracker Suite.” The performance, co-created by Dorrance with Josette Wiggan and Hannah Heller, caught attention in the news following its White House invitation by First Lady Jill Biden. The jazzy new vision of the classic holiday tradition is set to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s arrangement of the Tchaikovsky classic.
“It’s a unique telling of this classic story, living very much in a very traditional jazz and vernacular space and percussive, rooted in the tap dance space,” Michelle Dorrance said in an interview with Soraya Executive and Artistic Director Thor Steingraber. “It couldn’t be more of a literal dream to work with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky…because it’s such an unbelievably swingin’ version…there’s horn, a funky baseline, a swingin’ feel.”
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Co-creator Josette Wiggan, in the same interview, echoed Dorrance’s sentiments, saying the whimsical and fun show pays homage to their elders, but also bridges the gaps between the jazz and tap worlds in a way that “creates a fun space for kids to imagine and adults to reimage a (more traditional) Nutcracker they may have seen growing up.”
Following the Nutcracker Suite is the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra, with a concert on Dec. 14 filled with timeless arrangements and holiday classics that made the Glenn Miller Orchestra an icon for all ages.
One day later on Dec. 15, Lea Salonga makes her fourth visit to The Soraya, this time with two performances of “Sounding Joy: The Holiday Tour” at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. The all-new holiday concert, sure to be a hit with fans of all ages, features songs from Lea Salonga’s new holiday album (just released on Nov. 1) Sounding Joy. The album, featuring original music and classic Christmas songs reimagined in Salonga’s original style, is the star’s 14th recording, and marks a milestone as her very first holiday release in 20 years.
Best known for her Tony Award-winning role in Miss Saigon, Salonga most recently starred in the West End production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical revue “Old Friends,” and as Aurora in “Here Lies Love on Broadway,” which she also produced. Salonga’s Soraya performance this December is just ahead of her Broadway-bound starring role in Stephen Sondheim’s “Old Friends,” in which she and Bernadette Peters will reprise their roles from the concert’s West End bow. Previews for the show will begin in March 2025.
The Soraya’s Holiday Series closes on Dec. 19, with SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK®. On its 50th anniversary tour, the a cappella gospel group brings to The Soraya a concert to celebrate the “HolyDays,” brimming with vocal improvisations, and gospel traditions for a powerful celebration of the season. The group continues its work and the 50th anniversary tour despite the passing of its founder, Bernice Johnson Reagon, at the age of 81 in July. The civil rights activist co-founded the Freedom Singers and later started SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK® in 1973.
“It is impossible to separate liberation struggles from song. And in the 1960s — at marches, and in jailhouses — the voice leading those songs was often Bernice Johnson Reagon,” NPR wrote about Reagon in a July 2024 article. “Her work as a scholar and activist continued throughout her life, in universities and concert halls, at protests and in houses of worship.”
Reagon was a leading scholar of Black musical life well recognized for her work, according to NPR. In 1974 she received a music history appointment at the Smithsonian; in 1989, she won a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation; In 1994, she created a 26-part NPR documentary called “Wade in the Water” that won a Peabody award, and in 1995, Reagon was awarded the Presidential Medal and the Charles Frankel Prize.
For tickets or more information, visit thesoraya.org.
