 "Photo: Special to The Daily Gamecock")
 "Photo: Special to The Daily Gamecock")
Back by popular demand, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra will be in Columbia in time to kick off the holiday season with performances Sunday at the Colonial Life Arena.
TSO's orchestral rock music and light show is best experienced live. Known as "the biggest and boldest rock show on the planet," the band is made up of some of the most talented musicians and singers from around the world.
Its 2007 winter tour was its most successful - in 10 short weeks, the group played to more than 1.2 million fans and generated $44 million.
In the first half of the light show, TSO performs "Christmas Eve and Other Stories," complete with a narrator. The second half is a rock concert including songs from the band's other recordings and previews of selections not yet released.
Violinist Micah Gangwer, a third-year music graduate student, was contracted to play when TSO came to the Colonial Life Arena last year. His brother Seth also performs with the TSO regionally in Nashville, Memphis and Atlanta.
Gangwer said his experience with the TSO wasn't very different from other gigs and orchestral performances he has played in.
"I'm not sure how different it is," Gangwer said. "I mean, you show up for the rehearsal in the morning. It's pretty straightforward."
He said he might have enjoyed the experience more if he was watching the show as opposed to participating in both performances.
Producer, composer and lyricist Paul O'Neill started the band with a symphonic rock concept, meshing his love of classical music, rock operas, edge-pushing progressive rock, Broadway shows, heavy metal and the classic literature of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo.
"When I started the band, I wanted to take the very best of all the forms of music I grew up on and merge them into a new style," O'Neill said in a news release. "I wanted a full hard rock band and a full orchestra and I wanted multiple lead singers, each with a different strength - a super group that could be able to go anywhere musically and vocally. Creating contrasting musical moods to move listeners emotionally as we tell a story - that's the whole M.O. of TSO."
Having grown up in a large Irish-American family, O'Neill developed his Celtic influences with his love for experimental and progressive rock from artists like Emerson, Lake, Palmer and Pink Floyd.
"I had the benefit of growing up in New York City," continues O'Neill, "with a wide ranging world of musical influences all around me... and as a guitar player, I always loved the visceral power of loud rock, so metal had to be in the musical mix."
O'Neill always felt the need to create a show that would connect his love for the many genres.
"The band needed to be big enough, with enough sounds and vocal textures at our disposal to tackle the task," O'Neill said. "The contrast we could create between the hard rock pieces, then full on orchestra followed by a solo voice and keyboard made each resulting piece have more emotional impact. This is how we arrived at TSO."
Gangwer suggested that concertgoers should be sure to arrive early due to parking availability during the shows.
"There's always [a lot] of people at those shows," Gangwer said. "The Colonial Life Center was packed."
Doors open an hour prior to the event and ticket prices range from $18 to $53.50.
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