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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, December 9, 2011 · 38 Artscene Celebrate Christmas with the Symphony The Oakville Symphony Orchestra is presenting its ninth annual Family Christmas Concert at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts on Sunday (Dec. 11). There will be two concerts; one at 1.30 p.m., followed by another at 4 p.m. Each concert is one-hour in length and features seasonal music, carol sing-alongs and the voices of the award-winning Oakville Children's Choir Tickets cost $26 for adults, $17 for seniors and $13 for students and children. Tickets are available at www.oakvillecentre.ca. LOVELY TIME: Toronto's Good Lovelies will perform a Christmas concert as part of their annual tour at The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts on Friday, Dec. 16. Pictured (l-r) are members Sue Passmore, Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough. SUBMITTED PHOTO Suzuki Flute concert at Hopedale The Oakville Suzuki Flute Orchestra (OSFO) will be performing a holiday concert at Hopedale Mall in the hopes of improving the holiday season for several local needy families. The concert will take place on Saturday, Dec. 10 from noon to 2 p.m. The orchestra will collect donations for its Christmas season endeavor. Each Christmas the Suzuki flute studio sponsors two needy families by buying them food, toiletries, necessities, Christmas gifts and clothes. The children in these families also get educational items. However, doing something like this costs money, so the studio is hoping people will chip in at the holiday concert. Students of the flute program have gone on to university to study music and have moved up to orchestras. Some of its students have always won awards from the Oakville Symphony Orchestra. Good Lovelies bring Christmas to The Centre By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Toronto-based Good Lovelies have been spreading Christmas joy each of the past five years and this year, the three-member, all-girl band is returning to Oakville. The country/pop/folk/jazz band will perform at The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts on Friday, Dec. 16. "We hope we can offer people a good time with good music. We like to tell stories between songs. We hope we can make people laugh and have them smiling and enjoying themselves," said Sue Passmore. The band recorded its Christmas album in 2009. The album features well-known holiday tunes as well as three originals. However, people who have heard the album will get to hear even more at the live show. "For the live show we're starting to do some new things," Passmore said. "We try to mix it up a bit with some winter songs people may not know. Most of the stuff, however, will be familiar to people." Each Christmas season, the band puts on an "We hope we can offer people a good time with good music. We like to tell stories between songs. We hope to make people laugh." Sue Passmore, Good Lovelies extensive tour. The Good Lovelies are appearing at a number of Ontario and Canadian venues and wrapped up a tour of the U.S. recently. Doing so has become a tradition. "We do a Christmas tour every year. Our very first show together was a Christmas show," Passmore said. "It's become a regular annual thing. We play some Christmas music and some of our own music as well. It's good. It's fun. It's become a fun tradition." The musicians have been playing together for five years, but it nearly never happened, as the members never planned on forming a band. The three women are longtime friends and each has been a performer. "We were all getting into our adult lives and working on our solo careers. We each had our own albums. We got together five years ago and put on a show just for fun. It was a Christmas show and we were each doing it as solos, but we thought why not do a few songs together?" said Passmore. "We did a bunch of collaborations for that show. Because it was Christmas, we added some Christmas songs. We had so much fun and we clicked in a way that doesn't often happen." With such a good vibe, the girl didn't stop performing together. "We kept going with it to see what would happen. We auditioned for a few festivals and things just continued to work out. We kept rolling with it and here we are, it's our full-time job now. It's awesome," Passmore said. She added the Christmas tour each year has become a bit of an anniversary for the band. The Oakville show will also feature a couple of guest musicians joining the Good Lovelies on stage. The show begins at 8 p.m. Regular tickets cost $38.99. For tickets, visit www.oakvillecentre.ca.