by Jerry Young, Music Critic, Austin American-Stateman

The Austin Symphonic Band's annual Holiday Concert, benefiting the Blue Santa Program and staged Sunday at Bates Recital Hall, is one of those traditions that provide stepping stones through the holiday season. Despite the ASB's amateur status, the level of musicianship certainly rivals bigger-name groups in town, and the level of enthusiasm surpasses them. This gave this concert an extra kick as director Richard Floyd steered the 100-plus wind players and percussionists through well-known and not-so-well-known seasonal music.

The ASB eased into the holiday stuff gradually, beginning with composer Ron Nelson's exotic Morning Alleluias For the Winter Solstice, supposedly inspired by a Hiroshima sunrise. But Nelson too casually tossed together some Japanese musical influences with generic, off-the-shelf new music techniques - well-crafted, but so what? The ASB played it well, making the most out of the micro-tonal glissandi and splashing happily in its oriental groove. Likewise, they showed great power and finesse in the more convincing Suite Provencal by Jan Van Der Roost.

The Chorale and Shaker Dance by John Zdechlik was ironic, unintentionally I assume. The Shaker tune is Simple Gifts which extols the virtues of simplicity. But Zdechlik dolls up this simple tune with fussy janglings and rattlings, glorious chords and meretricious colors, a functional Shaker chair turned into the musical equivalent of a Barcalounger. The first half ended with a robust performance of the rousing musical non sequitur Polka and Fugue from Jaromir Weinberger's opera Schwanda, the Bagpiper. As unlikely as sauerkraut and champagne, but it works. The band played assertively, fortified by the presence of organist Thomas Pavlechko.

The second half was given to lively performances of more overtly seasonal music, highlighted by John Moss' Hollywood-style arrangements in The Wonders of Christmas and The Night Before Christmas with dramatic recitation by Amos Ewing and Mary Lang of Esther's Follies. Sweet, yes, but who counts musical calories at Christmas?

The ASB concluded with Robert Shaw's arrangement of Oh Come, All Ye Faithful with a quartet of badly-miked singers from the First United Methodist Church. We were invited to join in for the last verse, a pleasant end to a pleasant concert.