(SOUTH ORANGE, NJ) -- Irish-American supergroup Cherish the Ladies celebrates the holiday season with Celtic Christmas, a tour that includes back-to-back performances in a return engagement to SOPAC on Sunday, December 22. Arriving just in time for Christmas, Cherish the Ladies delights audiences with virtuoso instrumental talents, beautiful vocals, captivating arrangements and stunning step dancing. Performances are at 3:00pm and 7:00pm. Tickets are $40-$40.
Celebrating nearly 35 years of music-making, this Grammy Award-nominated group was formed in New York City in 1985 to celebrate the rise of extraordinary women in the male-dominated Irish music scene. “It is simply impossible to imagine an audience that wouldn’t enjoy what they do,” says The Boston Globe of Cherish the Ladies. The New York Times calls their music “passionate, tender and rambunctious,” and The Washington Post praises their “astonishing array of virtuosity.”
In Celtic Christmas, Cherish the Ladies lends their unique vocals and instrumentation to classic carols, many of which are heard on their albums, such as On Christmas Night, A Star in the East and Christmas in Ireland. Under the leadership of All-Ireland flute and whistle champion Joanie Madden — named by The Irish Voice newspaper as one of the Top 25 most influential Irish Americans of the past quarter century — Cherish the Ladies creates a program that explodes with musical exuberance. The company is composed of musicians Mary Coogan, Mirella Murray, Kathleen Boyle and Nollaig Casey, vocalist Don Stiffe, dancers Jason Oremus and Garrett Coleman, and dancer-fiddler Julie Fitzgerald.
Cherish the Ladies’ continued success as one of the top Celtic groups in the world is due to their ability to take the best of Irish traditional music and dance and put it forth in an immensely entertaining show. Their achievements have included world tours, concerts at the White House and the Olympics, 17 critically acclaimed albums, and an Emmy Award-winning special, An Irish Homecoming, which was broadcast on PBS.
Their reputation and admiration, from fans and critics alike, keep growing. Cherish the Ladies won recognition as the BBC’s Best Musical Group of the Year and Top North American Celtic Group at the Irish Music Awards — and a street was named after them in the Bronx! In 2018, bandleader Madden was honored with the Irish American Writers & Artists Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cherish the Ladies has collaborated with such musicians as The Boston Pops, The Clancy Brothers, The Chieftains, Vince Gill, Nanci Griffith, Pete Seeger, Don Henley, Arlo Guthrie and Maura O’Connell. The ensemble also was the featured soloist in more than 280 dates with symphony orchestras.
South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) is located at One SOPAC Way in South Orange, New Jersey.
Since 2006, SOPAC has been serving as a premier performing arts center in the region. SOPAC offers innovative artistic and cultural experiences for diverse audiences in an intimate, inviting environment. The arts center hosts a variety of live performances, community events and education programs for all ages. SOPAC is home for Seton Hall University Arts Council’s performances, including Classical Concert Series, Jazz ‘N the Hall performances and Seton Hall University Theatre productions. SOPAC programs are made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.
