Jersey Arts Podcast · ArtPride New Jersey

'Christmas Carolmania' Ends Their World Premiere Tour at the Count Basie Center this Christmas

·31 min·2 clips

Kululam began in Israel with 1,000 Christians, 1,000 Muslims, and 1,000 Jews singing together.

Gina Marie Rodriguez hosts. She talks with Kathy and Alan Glist, the married producing team behind Glist Entertainment, about a world-premiere holiday concert built to turn familiar Christmas songs into a shared live event. Their partnership matters here. The interview also looks back at their 53-year marriage and their producing history, from Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver, The King and I, and The Rothschilds to I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. The room is really about singing. The Glists explain that the appeal comes from people singing together, whether at a sporting event, with friends, or in a theater full of voices. The band helps carry that feeling. They describe a live six-piece ensemble with horns, violins, keyboard, and drums, and say the music support helps the whole room sound good. The carols are familiar. They pick eight or nine well-known Christmas carols and teach them in two- and three-part harmony so the audience can join in without needing to learn a brand-new score. The show also leaves room for play. A comic-relief performer moves through Santa, Mrs. Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and the Elf, giving the concert a running bit of theatrical mischief. Their company has also given back. The conversation notes Glist Entertainment's donations of over $1 million to women's charities and a recent $75,000 fundraising effort for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Audience participation keeps widening. The Ugly Sweater Contest brings people onstage, hands out gifts, and lets the crowd vote on the ugliest sweater. The playlist stretches wider too. A Name That Tune segment mixes Christmas carols with Hanukkah songs, and the Glists say the format has worked for children as young as four and adults into their eighties and nineties. The episode closes by pointing listeners to the Count Basie in Red Bank on December 23 at 7:30 p.m. and to thebasie.org for tickets and more information.

As heard by us

A holiday singalong that keeps the crowd involved.

Jersey Arts Podcast leans into Christmas Carolmania, a holiday concert built around the old pleasure of singing together. Kathy and Alan Glist talk about the world-premiere tour, their long producing history, and the simple appeal of familiar carols becoming bigger when a crowd…

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Why you'd press play

You want a holiday listen built around a communal sing-along and a live band.

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