Operatic tenor in Orchestra Iowa’s Holiday Spectacular spotlight

Tenor Ben Gulley is coming home for the holidays.

Actually, Cedar Rapids is wife Jessica Mallow Gulley’s hometown, but he has lots of family, friends and colleagues here. And he’s excited to be adding a classical flair this weekend to Orchestra Iowa’s Holiday Spectacular.

“I’m a Midwestern boy, too,” he said by phone from Kalamazoo, Mich., during a quick 24-hour stop between gigs in Monterey, Calif., and Milwaukee. “So there’s always a homecoming and warmth to the (Cedar Rapids) audience that’s very real. I’ve got a nice little fan base going on there. Literally, a few rows of the house will be family, with my married-in family. There’s a lot of them in the area.”

If you go

What: Orchestra Iowa: Holiday Spectacular 2024, featuring Ben Gulley

Where: Paramount Theatre, 123 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 20 and 21; 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 22

Tickets: $32 to $68; Arts Iowa Ticket Office, 119 Third Ave. SE, (319) 366-8203 or ticket.artsiowa.com/holiday-spectacular

Season details: artsiowa.com/orchestra-iowa/2425-season-announcement/

Now 39, he’s used to being in a home away from home, traveling the country and beyond to perform in operas, recitals, musical theater and orchestral concerts. He also wields a mean ukulele, writes music, and can pretty much play any instrument placed in his hands. His resume is vast, and he’s even performed at the Great Pyramids of Egypt in 2017.

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But the northern Missouri boy born in Omaha and educated at University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory now is based in Kalamazoo. That’s where Jessica — a former executive assistant for Orchestra Iowa before continuing her arts management education and work experiences — serves as president and CEO for the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.

While their professional engagements can keep the couple apart, Jessica will be in Cedar Rapids for the Holiday Spectacular, and travels to his events whenever their schedules allow.

“We call these our divide and conquer years,” he said.

Holiday Spectacular

He won’t have to divide and conquer the Paramount Theatre stage. He’s performed there for the Cedar Rapids Community Concert Association in 2021, and later soloed with Orchestra Iowa in Verdi’s Requiem in March 2023 and Orff’s “Carmina Burana” this past May. He also noted making a stop in Cedar Rapids 10 years ago on his solo national tour.

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Orchestra Iowa Maestro Timothy Hankewich has known Gulley since the days when both were in Kansas City.

“But it was only after he started dating Jessica Mallow that I said, ‘Oh, I know that guy,’ ” Hankewich said.

Hankewich and Gulley started talking during “Carmina Burana,” and the fit felt right to put the classically-trained tenor in the holiday concert.

“From the first time we met, actually off stage, we were pretty kindred characters with our personality,” Gulley said. “I think there’s some kind of magic and synergy that can happen when you enjoy someone off stage, and then when you get on stage and the respect is there, you meet each other in the ether. That’s how I feel when I’m working with Tim. It goes above reality. Any chance to make music together is always really amazing.”

Each year’s featured performers always bring a certain spin to the Holiday Spectacular, from cabaret and pop to blues to jazz.

“We’re always trying to figure out what we’re going to do differently each concert,” Hankewich said. “Last year was a completely different feel with the Iowa Women’s Jazz Orchestra. That one was a very high-octane, sort of swing, Big Band feel.”

For this year, he knew Gulley had been doing Christmas concerts with other groups, so Hankewich said he started “spying on” those programs and “came up with a couple of arias, based on the sort of Andrea Bocelli-Luciano Pavarotti Christmas album kind of sound.”

After listening to their holiday albums, Hankewich decided to incorporate the music that put Bocelli “on the map,” like “Panis angelicus,” “Ave Maria” and “The Lord’s Prayer.”

“As a result, the whole feel for this particular concert is a more sacred, traditional, classy Christmas,” Hankewich said.

“ … The demands of this particular program are almost Olympian when it comes to tenor singing. It seems that each aria is higher than the next,” Hankewich added.

“He’s got these lights-out high-register notes that are just going to knock people dead. He’s an amazing vocalist.”

But as always, expect plenty of twists in the concert. The “Ave Maria” Gulley will be singing is “Ave Maria, dolce Maria,” familiar in operatic circles, in a version arranged by nationally-known composer Paul Clark of Center Point.

“There’s a lot of music on this program that you’ll only hear in Iowa, that being one of them,” Hankewich said. “ ‘A Festive Holiday’ that a lot of orchestras around the country are now playing, is by Peter Bloesch, who lives 30 minutes south of here.

“And then, of course, I will be subjecting our audiences to my annual de-rrangements,” Hankewich said with his trademark boisterous laugh. Including a final sing-along with “Joy to the World.”

“It’s a feature for the organ, but it’s also an incredibly uplifting arrangement that everybody will just really love singing,” he said.

The concert will be full of shimmering ornaments like that, with Cedar Rapids Washington High School’s Madrigal Singers greeting audience members with carols; stirring tones from the Mighty Wurlitzer; a solo by Orchestra Iowa concertmaster Julia Sakharova; and a bell choir, a Holiday Chorus with 90 community singers, and the children’s Discovery Chorus during the concert. Santa and Mrs. Claus will greet guests of all ages in the Opus Concert Cafe just off the Paramount’s Hall of Mirrors.

After a busy fall into winter scene, Hankewich will be ready for a long winter’s nap.

“You got that right,” he said.

“Surprisingly, this has been a very difficult year. Usually, the bulk of the orchestra’s work happens after the New Year. In this particular season, the bulk of our work happened prior to the New Year, and so in terms of just scheduling, it’s a much more leisurely pace from here on to the end of the season.”

Looking ahead

Of the remaining events, he’s especially looking forward to the Mozart Requiem on April 12 at the Paramount in Cedar Rapids and April 13 in the Voxman Concert Hall in Iowa City.

“I’m a real choral guy, and I haven’t really been able to do that piece in a very long time, so I’m really looking forward to that,” Hankewich said. For details, go to artsiowa.com/tickets/concerts/solemn-devotional/

“I’m also looking forward to our next Masterworks. We’re doing my favorite Brahms, Symphony No. 4. That is yet another piece that I really haven’t revisited for a very long time. It’s kind of nice to revisit these old classics. That is kind of the reason why I became a conductor, and now I get to luxuriate in them again.” Dates are March 1 in Cedar Rapids and March 2 in Coralville. For details, go to artsiowa.com/tickets/concerts/lyrical-journey/

“And then the Shostakovich 5. That’ll be a big bang that I love. The Shostakovich 5 has a special place in my heart, because that was my exam piece for my doctoral degree, that I conducted. So, in many ways, it sort of launched my career.” Dates are May 17 in Cedar Rapids and May 18 in Coralville. For details, go to artsiowa.com/tickets/concerts/booming-finale/

Batter up!

Then to wind up the season, he’s ready to hit one out of the park — the Kernels’ home base at Veterans Memorial Stadium in southwest Cedar Rapids — by performing the score to “Field of Dreams” while the movie that made Iowa heaven plays on the big screen. Times are 2 and 7 p.m. June 7. For details, go to artsiowa.com/tickets/concerts/field-of-dreams-in-concert/

“We are the first orchestra in the country to do this,” Hankewich said. “I just know that every ballpark in the country will want to be doing the same thing soon. We’re kind of beta-testing the idea of doing ‘Field of Dreams’ at a ballpark on the Jumbotron, and performing the music in real time. …

“The studios released this as a potential package for orchestras. Not every film is available to be used for live performance, and this one was made available about a year ago.

“I remember having this conversation in early January with the management at the Kernels to see if they would be interested in partnering with us on such a project. And then when we approached the studio themselves, they were taken aback, because they’re so used to the notion of this being done in a concert hall, and to actually do it in a baseball field was completely — pardon the pun — out of left field.

“I think the nation’s eyes will be on us, so we want to make sure those stands are filled to capacity. And we also want to make sure that we pull the technical elements of coordinating the music with the film in such a way that other orchestras can follow our model.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com