The Santander Performing Arts Center is thrilled to announce three unforgettable productions this fall and winter. Tickets for these events go on sale Friday, July 30th.
Rocky in Concert
The Santander Performing Arts Center is thrilled to announce an unforgettable LIVE concert experience celebrating the inspiring anthems of MGM’s Rocky franchise. Rocky in Concert will be on September 24 at the Santander Performing Arts Center. Tickets go on-sale this Friday online at Ticketmaster.
Rocky in Concert is an all-new production where fans will Rocky Balboa like never before by watching the original Rocky film on larger-than-life screens while the musical score is performed LIVE by a band, chamber orchestra, and piano. This is a MUST SEE for Rocky fans of all ages.
This concert event also includes lobby displays featuring rare Rocky memorabilia, selfie stations, and exclusive Rocky in Concert merchandise.
Rocky in Concert celebrates the 45th anniversary of this classic franchise and will encourage audiences to cheer on the underdog Rocky as Bill Conti’s legendary scored “Gonna Fly Now” is performed LIVE.
MGM’s Rocky and Creed films have generated more than $1.3 billion in worldwide box-office sales, three Academy Awards, and 10 nominations. The iconic franchise, produced by Chartoff Winkler Productions, has remained a global phenom because it presents audiences with universally relatable themes that they can identify with—ambition, passion, determination and giving it your all to win, even when the odds are against you.
The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Musical
This holiday season The Elf on the Shelf® Scout Elves return to center stage for the live musical that has captured the hearts of families everywhere. Inspired by the beloved box set The Elf on the Shelf®: A Christmas Tradition, this touring stage production is a thrilling spectacle of music and dance that transports audiences to the North Pole to glimpse the magical lives of Santa’s Scout Elves.
This toe-tapping tale tells the story of one particularly impressive Scout Elf who must help his new, human family remember the importance of Christmas cheer. Can this tiny elf, along with a host of North Pole pals, make Christmas joyous for his family once again? Featuring an original story and score, dazzling sets and costumes, and heartfelt moments that will bring the family together, this joyous and uplifting celebration will leave audiences captivated by the splendor of the season.
The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Musical comes to Santander Performing Arts Center on December 22. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 30. Tickets available online at Ticketmaster
The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Musical is a creative collaboration between The Lumistella Company and Mills Entertainment. The original stage production was developed by Sara Wordsworth (Broadway’s In Transit, Disney’s Frozen JR., Disney Cruise Line’s Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin) as writer and lyricist, Russ Kaplan (Broadway’s In Transit, Dear Albert Einstein) as composer, and Sam Scalamoni (Elf the Musical, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Nickelodeon’s StoryTime Live) as director.
Gipsy Kings
Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes will take the stage in downtown Reading at the Santander Performing Arts Center on October 24! Tickets go on-sale online at Ticketmaster.com on Friday, July 30 at 10AM.
It has been twenty-five years since the Gipsy Kings captured the world’s imagination with their self-titled debut album—a record that became a genuine phenomenon, certified gold and platinum around the globe, introducing millions of listeners to a unique, irresistible blend of traditional flamenco styles with Western pop and Latin rhythms. Since then, the band has toured virtually non-stop, to the farthest-flung corners of the planet, and sold almost twenty million albums, all the while retaining the same line-up of virtuoso musicians.
Now the Gipsy Kings return with SAVOR FLAMENCO, their ninth studio album and first new release in six years. The project marks the first time in their storied career that the Kings have produced themselves and written all of the material. It also starts a relationship between France’s most successful musical group of all time and a new label, Knitting Factory Records.
“Music has always been a passion,” says lead guitarist Tonino Baliardo. “Even after all this time, after all these years of touring and working. It has given us so much. We have matured, we have developed in music, and it has been so good for us.”
Twenty-five years is an eternity in pop music, but the story of the Gipsy Kings reaches back much farther. Theirs is a music that extends through generations, to the sounds of their ancestors, and reflects the eclectic and peripatetic history of the gitanos, Spanish Romani people who fled the Catalonia region during the Spanish Civil War.
The group has been fronted for 25 years by the two songwriters and producers Nicolas Reyes and Tonino Baliardo. The father of Nicolas, Jose Reyes, formed a celebrated flamenco duo with Manitas de Plata which counted the likes of Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso among its fans. When the pair parted ways, Reyes became even more popular after starting his own band, backed up by his sons and called Los Reyes.
When the senior Reyes passed away in 1979, Nicolas and Tonino began playing together in the Southern French town of Arles. They traveled throughout the country, busking on the streets of Cannes, playing wherever they could—weddings, parties, festivals. Having adopted the perpetual motion of the gypsy lifestyle, they eventually translated “Los Reyes” and changed their name to the Gipsy Kings.
“World Music” is often a meaningless catch-all phrase, a marketing shortcut, but as one of the acts that first helped define the phrase, the Gipsy Kings create music that really does cross all borders. From the beginning all the way through SAVOR FLAMENCO, their sound has reflected the constant travel and diverse influences of the gypsy heritage. Their 1987 debut album, which spent forty weeks on the US album charts, introduced the world to “Rumba Gitano”—South America’s rumba rhythm married to the fleet attack of flamenco guitars. That record’s “Bamboleo” became a huge, break-out worldwide hit (more than twenty years later, it even turned up on an episode of the TV series Glee).
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