PennLive - November 17, 2022

Grammy and Emmy award-winning artist, Harry Connick Jr., starts his “A Holiday Celebration 2022 Tour” in Pennsylvania this Friday, Nov. 18.

Ahead of his first performance in Hershey, Connick sat down with PennLive reporter, Claudia Dimuro, to talk about what he’s excited about the most with this tour; what he hopes the holidays bring to people this year; and even his favorite Christmas songs.

Continue on below to read the interview in full.

What are you most excited about, going on this tour?

I just can’t wait to get out and play. It’s a little bit more relaxed than it was [during last summer’s tour], so I’m excited for people to come out and and be able to have a good time. We can all celebrate together.

So what can folks expect — specifically folks in Hershey for the first performance — on this tour?

Well, I haven’t seen my band in a while, and we’re all excited to play together again. It’s just going to be a bunch of great Christmas songs with some amazing musicians on stage, and we just can’t wait. We’re so excited to play, and we’re thrilled the first show’s in Hershey.

That’s actually leading into one of my other questions — what are your favorite Christmas songs, both to listen to and perform, and why?

There’s so many good ones — I like “Sleigh Ride,” that’s probably my favorite Christmas song. It’s just such an unusual composition, it’s got a little bit of a different form, and the melody’s great. It’s got great chord changes to it. And then there’s songs that I haven’t done before like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “The Christmas Song,” the title track to the album “Make It Merry.” I haven’t performed those before, so I’m excited to sing those and play those.

I [also] wrote all new orchestrations for this tour, so the music is going to be super fresh, and people in Hershey’ll be hearing it for the first time.

Now, the last time you released an album, “Alone With My Faith,” it was an entirely solo project. How does it feel to get back together with the band? Was being able to bounce off of other musicians on this tour something you were looking forward to?

Yes, there’s nothing like that. This album was pretty much done by myself, too; there were a couple of songs where I brought in guys individually, and right at the end I brought in string players. But just the idea of being on the road, being with this group of musicians, going on a literal journey together is so, so fun.

It’s just like a sports team or any group of people — when you do things night after night, you really develop a nice rapport with one another, and things become kind of shorthand very quickly. It’s just the best feeling in the world because you have them on stage, and then you have these audiences who are hopefully going to hear something that they haven’t heard or seen before. It’s just a great way to spend some time.

Last question — what are you hoping this holiday season brings to people?

You know, we just live in a really weird time. It’s just a very angry time, a very confusing time. Coming out of this pandemic, and looking at all the things that are going on in the world, with wars and politics, it’s just a very stressful time for everyone, and I’m just hoping the holiday season brings a little peace and joy to everybody (which it normally does).

Read the full article here.