Review: LESLIE ODOM, JR. CHRISTMAS TOUR sparkles at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

There’s just something magical about seeing a performance in the city at Christmastime.  Whether it’s the sparkling lights or the rare snap of chilly air, a show or concert feels a little more special around the holidays - and even more so when that show is performed at the Alliance’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and headlined by the insanely multi-talented Leslie Odom, Jr.

Best known for his Tony award-winning performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton and most recently off his nominated performance as the titular character in Purlie Victorious, Leslie Odom. Jr., visited the ASO for his third performance, this one a sold-out Christmas concert on December 13th.  With both the Symphony Hall and the Alliance Theatre hosting holiday performances that night, the Woodruff Arts Center was full to the brim (both with people and with holiday spirit).  Despite the excess of audience members, the 1762-seat theatre became an intimate venue once Odom stepped onto the stage, beginning his set with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  The classic tune was a perfect intro for the night, a smooth and semi-sultry welcome to both the season and the show.  The stage was modernist and sparse, letting Odom become the rightful focus of his show.  The lighting designer and engineer is also to be praised with how well-lit and unique the lighting effects were, especially the moments where a backlit figure allowed for a larger-than-life shadow to be projected onto the ASO walls.

Accompanied by his fantastically talented backing band the Galaxy Defenders, Odom sang a variety of holiday tunes - classics like “Christmas Waltz,” “The First Noel,” and a jazzed up “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, “O Tannenbaum” and “Ave Maria” in their respective German and Italian, and was joined by his band-as-vocalists in a doo-wop acapella version of “Jesus Gave Me Water.”  The band members themselves each had their time to shine and were heavily applauded by the audience (and jammed to by Odom himself), but perhaps none more than his piano player.  When he took a turn at the organ to jam out a fantastic version of “Please Come Home for Christmas,” the audience became a congregation with Odom as preacher and the organist as his right-hand man backing the powerful melodic sermon.

Odom was not only bewitching with his musicality but his performance all around, especially when he recited the entirety of Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Despite it being a tale everyone has heard since childhood, the audience hung on each word, smiling when he smiled, hands stinging from applause, following his fingertips as if to see snow suddenly sprinkling from them.  It was, as the entire night was, magical.  To finish the evening, Odom and his band returned for a small encore, gathering intimately in the very center of the stage to bid farewell to his listeners with “Merry Christmas, Darling” and a certain non-holiday song that he “begged forgiveness” for breaking the theme (he was quickly forgiven by the Hamilton fans in the audience).  All in all, Leslie Odom, Jr.’s third time at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was certainly the charm, and this reviewer can’t wait for it to come back around.

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