20th Annual Rob Mathes Christmas Concert

THE 20TH ANNUAL ROB MATHES CHRISTMAS CONCERT

This year marks the 20th annual Rob Mathes Christmas Concert! And what

a celebration it will be -- Rob Mathes will perform with special guests,

original versions of holiday classics and Mathes favorites that everyone has

come to know and love.  Concerts are Friday, December 20, and

Saturday, December 21, 8 p.m., at The Performing Arts Center at Purchase

College. Tickets are

$40, $50, and $75 and are available online at artscenter.org or by calling 914-251-6200.  Proceeds benefit Through The Eyes of Children:The Rwanda Project.

Rob Mathes will take

center stage with his band of New York City All-Star musicians and perform an

inimitable set of songs combining his original scores, many of which have been

recorded by artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville, Rascal Flatts and

Vanessa Williams, along with extraordinary arrangements of holiday classics. Several

of the numbers utilize a seven-piece horn section featuring players from the

recent Rolling Stones tour, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown's band, to name a

few. The arrangements evoke sounds as disparate as Duke Ellington, Prince,

Nelson Riddle and Bob Marley.  The 20th anniversary Rob Mathes

Christmas Concert will highlight special guests as well as performances by

Rob’s world-class band made up of Will Lee on bass, Billy Masters on guitar,

Joe Bonadio on drums, Rick Knutsen on keyboards, and vocalists James “D Train”

Williams, Ian Cron, Vanese Thomas and 90+ member full choir of Saints and

Friends. 

Emmy

award-winning and Grammy-nominated Mathes has worked with every legendary name

in the music industry, arranging, producing, directing, recording and

performing with the likes of Sting, Sir Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Tony

Bennett, Bono and more. The past couple years have showcased Rob’s unique

talents as he worked on numerous collaborations with Sting, most recently

co-producing Sting’s latest record The Last

Ship, Sting’s first original album in ten years; and working as the

music supervisor and orchestrator for Sting’s Broadway play, The Last Ship, opening the fall of 2014.

Rob just finished orchestrations for another set of songs by Bruce Springsteen

and has worked closely with Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco and the young

wunderkind Tori Kelly on his debut album. Lou Reed called Rob this year to

revisit some tracks from his classic record Transformer. Rob

was nominated again for an Emmy for musically directing the Kennedy Center Honors for the 10th year running, and his

score for the HBO film Thurgood was

also nominated for an Emmy. Rob is preparing to produce a record by the great

Blues and Rock Vocalist Beth Hart, and from a different world, his chamber

orchestration of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony (No. 2) has been released by

Mahler's publisher Universal Edition under the direction of the world famous

Mahler Scholar and Conductor Gilbert Kaplan. 

This holiday

season, in addition to Rob’s own Christmas Concert, Rob will be musically

directing the holiday specials, Christmas in

Washington, and the Kennedy

Center Honors, the

award-winning music extravaganza that celebrates the careers of the most

influential musicians and performers of our time.

Despite his busy

schedule, Rob always finds time to bring his unique musical magic home for the

holidays. Every year Rob’s concert benefits a charity, and this year will be no

exception, with all proceeds benefiting a non-profit close to Rob’s heart, Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project.

Tickets for the Rob Mathes Christmas

Concert are $40, $50 & $75 and are available at the Performing

Arts Center Box Office artscenter.org or by calling 914-251-6200.  To

learn more about the non-profit concert beneficiary Through

the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda

Project, visit the website rwandaproject.org.  To

learn more about Rob Mathes and his annual Christmas Concert, visit www.robmathes.com.

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