After 25 years, this season will be Art of Time Ensemble's last.John Lauener/Supplied
Art of Time Ensemble: To All a Good Night 8
The inventive, eclectic musical troupe led by Andrew Burashko has announced that its 2023-24 season will be its last, after 25 years. For its final holiday presentation, expect elegant interpretations of John Prine’s bittersweet Christmas In Prison, Joni Mitchell’s sombre River – “I made my baby say goodbye” – and more. Dec. 7 to 9, Harbourfront Centre Theatre, Toronto
Home Alone in Concert
Come for the slapstick and Macaulay Culkin; stay for a live soundtrack of traditional Christmas songs and the Grammy-nominated score from John Williams, which includes the memorable Somewhere in My Memory. The romping 1990 comedy about home invasion and unfit parents stars Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard and Catherine O’Hara, in addition to Culkin as the crafty abandoned child. National Arts Centre Orchestra, Dec. 7 to 9, Southam Hall, Ottawa; Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 7 to 10, Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto
Montreal Symphony Orchestra: Polichignon’s Secret
Storyteller Fred Pellerin and conductor Kent Nagano present a new Christmas tale about a small-town hairdresser who not only cuts the villagers’ hair, but keeps their secrets too. Billed as a “thriller,” the story is accompanied by Mahler, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumblebee, as well as a pair of buzzed-about world premiere compositions. Dec. 14 to 17, Montreal Symphony House
Christmas with Chor Leoni
It is a tradition as treasured as sleigh rides and spiked eggnog. Vancouver’s all-male group harmonizes its 65 voices in service of such cold-weather classics as Star of the East, I Saw Three Ships and, to close the evening, the melodic tryptophan of Silent Night. Also on the program: The world premiere of A Midnight Clear from composer-violinist Cameron Wilson. (For those who cannot attend in person, the new concert film Chor Leoni: At Christmas streams on the choir’s website from Dec. 23 to Jan. 2.) Dec. 15, 16 and 18, St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church, Vancouver
Tafelmusik: Singalong Messiah
Santa Claus has his gifts; George Frideric Handel has his. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir presents its annual singalong, led by conductor Ivars Taurins in stockings and a powdered wig, representing Handel himself. One man’s hallelujah is another’s man’s ho-ho-ho. Dec. 17, Koerner Hall, Toronto
Metropolitan Orchestra: Handel’s Messiah
The maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who receives Grammy nominations as regularly as the rest of us receive Christmas cards, leads his orchestra and an all-Canadian cast of soloists in Handel’s hit oratorio at the Gothic revival masterpiece that is Notre-Dame Basilica. Dec. 19 and 20, Montreal