Joyce DiDonato, famed opera singer joins YouTube favorites Kings Return in holiday concert

This holiday season, the Harris Theater for Music and Dance is offering something new for people looking past "The Nutcracker" and "The Messiah."

Well, really a new take on the familiar. Famed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato will join the multi-style vocal quartet Kings Return and Chicago pianist Craig Terry for a Dec. 13 yuletide program titled “Kings ReJoyce!”

In addition to a Motown medley, two versions of “Ave Maria” and a vocalized “Nutcracker Suite,” the program will consist of mostly well-known carols and songs like “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” “O Holy Night,” “Sleigh Ride” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

“I think all six of us,” DiDonato said, “who will share the Harris stage together are hoping the audience will feel a deep sense of peace and joy — a lasting one they can bring home and nurture.”

Setting these offerings apart will be the stylistic fusions and unusual arrangements, which will alternately feature just Kings Return, DiDonato and Terry or in some cases all six performers at once. (A particular highlight will DiDonato’s a cappella take on “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.”)

“It’s finding ways for everyone to show what their superpowers are,” said Terry, who helped assemble the line-up. “So for Joyce, it’s her incredible coloratura [vocal acrobatics]. And for Kings Return it’s to sing in the styles for which they are known and putting it together in a way that makes sense for everyone. It has been really fun.”

DiDonato is one of the most celebrated singers of her generation, winning three Grammy Awards for best classical vocal solo and regularly performing in the great opera houses and concert halls of the world.

Classical singers tend to stick to more traditional programs, collaborating with a pianist or an orchestra. While DiDonato excels in such formats, she also likes to break out and present more unconventional, often cross-genre offerings.

“Her ability to take on any project and make it uniquely hers and successful musically for her is really superlative,” Terry said. “She has an ability to embrace everything, put herself at the center of it and communicate it so that the audience feels her authenticity.” In the first of her three previous appearances at the Harris in 2016, for example, she appeared in “In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music,” a thematic, highly theatrical program of baroque arias with the chamber ensemble, Il Pomo d’Oro.

DiDonato happened to discover Kings Return performing what she called an “astonishing arrangement” of “Ave Maria” in a video on YouTube. The Dallas-based all-male group, which solidified its current lineup in 2020, brings together elements of R&B, jazz and pop on a classical foundation. She left a comment praising the foursome. They quickly responded enthusiastically, and she wrote back, “We should do something together!”

That something wound up being this holiday tour — her first ever.

“My first love in music was choral music,” DiDonato said, “and it’s absolutely where I have always felt at home, so the chance to return to singing in a group, especially this group, feels like a genuine return to my roots.”

Providing support on the piano for some of the selections will be Terry, a longtime Chicago presence. He has served since 2013 as music director of the Ryan Opera Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s pre-professional training program, and is artistic director of Beyond the Aria, a recital series presented by the Harris Theater.

DiDonato and he won a 2020 Grammy Award together for the album “Songplay” and have toured together internationally.

“So, when I thought of who would be a great partner for this program, Craig was the immediate and obvious choice,” DiDonato said.

The Harris concert is part of a seven-city tour that other than San Diego on Dec. 7 notably avoids the two coasts. It sticks mostly to small and mid-size cities in the Midwest and Southwest like Akron, Ohio; Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Kansas City, Missouri, where DiDonato grew up in a nearby suburb.

“It was a conscious decision,” she said, “to focus on some of these smaller cities and in particular across the Midwest since this is the home for Craig, myself and the men of Kings Return. I think we all feel this will be a gift to those fans, friends and family who have supported and lifted us all up over the years.”