Cincinnati Pops Performs Concert Premiere of YES, VIRGINIA Featuring Conductor John Morris Russell, 12/14

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra will perform the world concert premiere of Macy's Yes, Virginiain Concert at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 14, at Music Hall. The family-friendly performance is developed and presented by Macy's and will feature John Morris Russell conducting the Pops along with singers and actors in a semi-staged adaptation. This will be the world premiere performance of the fully orchestrated concert version of the musical with book and lyrics by William Schermerhorn and music by Wesley Whatley. "Yes, Virginia The Musical" was created by Macy's in 2012 as part of its annual holiday Believe campaign.

This new musical has its origins in 1897, when eight-year old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote the New York Sunnewspaper in New York City asking if Santa Claus really existed. One of the paper's editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, wrote an impassioned response that has become the most reprinted editorial from any English language newspaper. The reading and interpretation of O'Hanlon and Church's words have become popular Christmas traditions for many and was the inspiration for Macy's holiday Believe campaign. Virginia's story was first re-imagined as the animated special Yes, Virginia, which debuted on CBS in 2009. In celebration of the fifth anniversary of Believe, Macy's developed a school musical adaptation of the story and made the script and score available royalty-free to schools across the country and offered $100,000 in grants to support schools' productions. That same year, the story was also presented as a marionette show for Macy's Herald Square flagship in New York City. Yes, Virginia in Concert is the first orchestrated concert version of the story and will have its premiere performance in Cincinnati with the Pops.