Celebrate the holiday season circus-style with Big Top Holidays, a special four-day spectacle from the talented performers of Sailor Circus. Under the direction of a new creative director in Jared Walker—and performing under the canvas confines of the Ulla Searing Big Top at Nathan Benderson Park—these budding students of the circus arts have assembled a production to both wow and amaze. Opening Thursday, December 27, the performance runs only through December 30. Tickets are on sale.

Featuring at least 14 acts, audiences will see everything from the high-flying to the high-speed and all the jaw-dropping feats in between, as the young performers push their skills and bodies to the limit. Aerial silks, acrobatics, unicycles, juggling, high wire acts, trapeze and more all enter the equation, creating a wintertime circus spectacular to showcase the magic of circus arts and the strength of Sailor Circus in particular. “What they pull off is really spectacular,” says Walker. “The strength and training that it takes to do what they’re doing is truly astounding to me on a day-to-day basis.”

Because while Walker has only held the post of creative director for eight weeks (though local audiences may recognize him from his time with Golden Apple Dinner Theater, the Players Theatre or even a stint as ringmaster in this year’s Summer Circus Spectacular), he’s already no stranger to the punishing regimens that the students of Sailor Circus follow. For five days a week, he says, the performers head straight to practice from school, and train until at least 8pm in the evening. Some train for multiple acts, lifting fellow acrobats for an hour and a half before swinging from trapezes and then riding unicycles and bicycles for hours in some sort of circus triathlon. Visitors can also expect some real holiday touches more than guaranteed to rouse a belly laugh or at least raise an eyebrow, such as “reindeer” in bathing suits enjoying a festive unicycle outing.

New this year, the holiday production moves from the Sailor Circus Arena (under construction until mid-February) to a big top installed at Nathan Benderson Park. Erected since October, and featuring a new lighting system, the change of venue adds a sense of classic circus, but also comes with its challenges, such as inclement weather that last week forced the cancellation of some practices. Undeterred, Walker plans to open the show with a new act called “Thunderstruck,” featuring six artists on six trapezes and a healthy dose of AC/DC. “That’ll open the show like a Florida thunderstorm,” he says.

Big Top Holidays opens this Thursday, December 27, at Nathan Benderson Park, and runs through December 30. Showtimes are 2pm and 7pm every day except Sunday, which has a single performance at 5pm. Tickets are $15–$30. 

Pictured: Sailor Circus Academy students perform acrobatic adagio. Photo by John Jones.

The Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning has announced January’s guests for its popular Music Mondays series entitled, “Musical Conversations with Great Performers.” January 7 sees pianist Pedja Muzijevic, who has appeared at major music festivals and with symphony orchestras around the world as a soloist, in recital, or as part of a chamber music ensemble. January 14 brings soprano Kara Shay Thomson who has been performing with the Santa Fe Opera, Florida Grand Opera and New York City Opera, and will be singing the title role in Puccini’s Turandot this season with the Sarasota Opera. On January 21, the singers of Sarasota Young Voices, a group of high school age singers that has performed in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Vatican in Rome, Ireland, and a tour of Greece this past summer, stop by, and January 28 sees George Nickson and Samantha Bennett, principal percussionist and principal second violin with the Sarasota Orchestra, respectively, and founders of ensembleNEWSRQ. Featuring informal performances and lively conversations with renowned performers and conductors, the 2019 Music Mondays run January 7 through March 25. The morning sessions are 10:30am at Church of the Palms, and afternoon sessions are at 3pm at Venice Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $10 per session. To purchase tickets, visit the website below. 

Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning

The Hermitage North @ New College series continues into the new year with composer Joseph N. Rubinstein and dramatist Jason Kim, in a presentation entitled “LGBT Opera, Then and Now,” which will address the cultural relationship between gay, male life and opera. There have rarely been gay relationships explicitly portrayed in operas themselves until recent years, and Rubinstein and Kim will talk about some of this recent work, and include a discussion of Legendary, the opera they’re collaborating on at the Hermitage, set in the uptown New York City drag scene of the 1980s. The presentation will be Thursday, January 10, at 6pm in the New College Academic Center, Classroom ACE 102, 5800 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota. Reservations for this free series are required and can be requested at the website below. 

Hermitage North @ New College "LGBT Opera, Then and Now"

The Sarasota Concert Association’s 2019 Great Performers Series season opens on Monday, January 14, with the piano duo, Anderson & Roe. The program will feature Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 34b, variations on a theme of Leonard Cohen’s composition, Hallelujah, and their arrangement of John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s composition, “Let It Be.” Individual tickets are $30 to $75. Subscriptions for all six 2019 GPS concerts are $140, $200, $264, $355, and $420. Tickets and information for the Great Performers Series are available by calling 941-225-6500 or online at the website below.

The Sarasota Concert Association's free Music Matinees series also continues its 2018-2019 season with classical and jazz guitarist Marc Mannino, who is joined by John DeWitt, bass, and Scott Blum, percussion, Wednesday, January 16, at noon, in David Cohen Hall at the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center. The program includes works by John Lennon/Paul McCartney, Johann Sebastian Bach, Duke Ellington/Johnny Mercer, 

Sarasota Concert Association