Five By Design, a vocal jazz quintet from the Minneapolis area, bring '40s fashion flair to "Radio Holly-Days," coming to Cedar Rapids for Orchestra Iowa's holiday pops concert Dec. 17 and 18 at Sinclair Auditorium at Coe College. Vocalists are (from left) Terrence Niska, Lorie Carpenter-Niska, Kurt Niska, Catherine Scott and Mike Swedberg. (Five By Design photo)

By Diana Nollen/ SourceMedia Group

Orchestra Iowa’s holiday pops concerts will take on a “hi-yo silver bells” vibe when Five By Design puts a Christmas spin on its signature vintage radio show.

The Lone Ranger, Rudolph and the Chattanooga Choo Choo will be rolling into Sinclair Auditorium in Cedar Rapids next weekend in “Radio Holly-Days” (Dec. 17 and 18, 2011). The program pairs the Minneapolis-area vocal jazz quintet with an eight-piece big band and strings from Orchestra Iowa for a sentimental journey through a 1940s.

“Nothing is more powerful than nostalgia this time of year,” says Tim Hankewich, Orchestra Iowa’s music director.

The format reflects the new direction the orchestra has taken since the flood, when the traditional pops concert was split into a separate classical holiday concert and a pops variety show dubbed “Follidays,” based on the orchestra’s popular Follies tradition.

Hankewich says it’s time for a change, but not a huge one.

“Running the Follidays program was extremely extensive,” he says. “We had the same program two years in a row, even though we altered it somewhat. We wanted to give it a rest and bring it back at some other time. We don’t want to be accused of always doing the same thing every year.

“It was expensive, as well, getting the rights to arrange the music and then arranging the music. As fun as it is, it is a huge task to manage all those moving parts,” Hankewich says.

Finding the local singers, dancers and actors to create a Follidays also is challenging at this busy time of year.

“Last year, so much was going on theatrically at Theatre Cedar Rapids and Anamosa that it was very difficult to cast it,” he says.

Enter Five By Design — a group Hankewich has worked with several times — that brings its own productions to symphonies and performing arts centers.

Tim Hankewich, Orchestra Iowa

“It’s very much in the same vein as Follidays,” Hankewich says. “It’s a vintage radio program that features Christmas favorites, some Top 40 of the day, some side skits and even commercials for products that have long since gone away.

“Five By Design are no strangers to Cedar Rapids,” he says. “We first brought them in the year before the flood for ‘Club Swing’ and the (Cedar Rapids Community Concert Association) has brought them in, as well.

“It’s all about that retro homage to times past,” Hankewich says. “If people liked the (orchestra’s recent) Sinatra program, this will be right up their alley,” Hankewich says.

The core group includes high school friends Michael Swedberg (baritone), brothers Kurt (tenor) and Terrence Niska (bass) and Kurt’s wife, Lorie Carpenter-Niska (soprano), whom the guys met in college. They began performing together in 1986 and make it a true family affair, with Swedberg’s wife, Midge, serving as their office manager and booking agent. Catherine Scott adds her alto harmonies to the mix,

“We want people to feel like they’re stepping back in time to a live radio broadcast in December 1941,” says Michael Swedberg, 48, of Shakopee, Minn. “The goal is to recreate what it felt like to be at a live radio broadcast during the Golden Age of radio.”

He says audiences will hear “lots of great, timeless music” and Christmas classics like “Jingle Bells” in the style of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, a swing arrangement of “Let it Snow” and “Rudolph” and a Gene Autry version of “Here Comes Santa Claus.”

“We also have a poignant moment — my favorite moment in the show — with a woman singing in a Jo Stafford style, ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas,’ while a soldier and his bride have a last dance before he’s sent off to war,” Swedberg says.

The Five By Design performers are in their 40s, so they didn’t live through this era, but Swedberg says they’re all passionate about the Great American Songbook music of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. They’ve also done extensive research, listening to Bob Hope, Jack Benny, soap operas and children’s shows like “Superman” and “Tom Mix.”

- Sound effects add an authentic ring to the "Radio Holly-Days" vintage radio show format. (Five By Design photo)

“Another one of my favorites — we do a drama of ‘Inner Sanctum,’ recreating an episode with the sound effects,” he says. “We built the sound effects from specs found in books from the 1940s at the library. We built a thunder machine and wind machine, which really helps bring the text to life.

“We also have some appearances by Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda with her tutti-frutti hat. We have five singers in the show and a host who sits next to a Christmas tree and an old radio, reminiscing about his childhood, and we bring those (memories) to life,” Swedberg says, adding that they also pay faithful attention to choreography and clothing styles of the day.

At 44, Hankewich didn’t live through that era either, but like Swedberg, grew up surrounded by the sounds at home.

“This was very much the music of my parents, yet as a child, it’s the music I heard growing up,” Hankewich says. “I have a great affinity for it even though it’s not the music of my generation.

“I was shopping the other day, listening to what was being piped in, thinking about a generation of kids who will become nostalgic about this (contemporary) style of music being played,” Hankewich says. “My earliest memories of Christmas music are the Rat Pack, Bing Crosby and that classic sound. It’s a generational thing and it’s quickly disappearing.”

In the meantime Five By Design, along with others like Manhattan Transfer, Michael Buble and Harry Connick Jr., are carrying the torch.

The recent swing dance resurgence is helping reach younger audiences.

“Ten years ago, our audiences were made up of people who remembered that era,” Swedberg says. That’s no longer the case.

“It’s really exciting to keep this alive for new generations,” he says. “As time goes on, younger people want to experience what it was like to be at a live taping and see what their grandparents experienced. More and more, we’re seeing young people really getting into the music.”

ARTS EXTRA

What: “Radio Holly-Days,” Orchestra Iowa Pops Concert featuring Five By Design

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, 2011

Where: Sinclair Auditorium, 1220 First Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids

Tickets: $20 to $40 at the Orchestra Iowa Ticket Office, (319) 366-8203, 1-(800) 369-8863 or www.orchestraiowa.org

Information: www.orchestraiowa.org and www.fivebydesign.com