- Is everybody ready?
(muffled exclamations)
I'll take that as a yes. (chuckles)
(jazzy piano music) It feels so good to be back.
Oh wow.
It feels great to be in a room with all my friends again.
I'm really looking forward to doing this with you guys
and, you know, looking forward to like,
making some art together.
And most of all, let's have a lot of fun doing it, okay?
- So everybody let's make that promise with each other.
(workers applaud)
- What I like about this show is that
the audience is gonna get to see kind of under the hood
of what it takes to put on a Christmas show like this.
- A little bit of a blizzard too right before you came.
- (chuckles) I saw that, I was watching from the corner.
What it's like backstage,
what it's like performing to an empty house,
as we do when we rehearse.
(Brian vocalizes)
- [Crew Member] Six take two, marks.
(clapper snaps)
Doing this concert is different than usual
because generally you get one take.
My voice cracked, I can't do that one (laughs).
Come through this door.
You get a lot of rehearsal, which is fantastic,
but doing it this way, where we get to go back,
if something's not quite right,
it's a little less terrifying actually.
And tell us about the joy that music brings
into the world at Christmas time,
when... here's my door, (laughs) sorry about that.
We've got like, people holding lights, we've got--
and these are moving shots, are really complicated.
It's not just thrilling music.
We've got Jed on the steady cam
and he's walking backwards while he's doing this.
And he has to stay in pace.
We got somebody on a teleprompter
and that has to be working right.
And then we've got other camera people down there.
And you know, there are just a lot of things
that need to work perfectly together.
And people don't appreciate that.
And they shouldn't, because they should just enjoy the show.
Well, aren't you the surprise?
How are you?
- Good morning, how are you?
- One of the things that is really great about music
is it has a way of connecting people
and bringing people together
in a very profound and deep way.
Speaking of matters of the heart, you hear that music?
I think I know who that is.
Mack Wilberg is that you?
- [Mack] It's me.
- Ah, I love Mack Wilberg.
Mack, it is so great to be on this stage again with you.
And I love conversations with him about everything.
I love talking to him about music,
because what you hear and you feel from his music,
that's who that guy is.
Mack, Merry Christmas! - Merry Christmas to you.
His string writing is just so luscious.
He literally writes every single note
for each of the members of the orchestra.
I said, "Mack, how do you, how do you get that sound?"
And I'm not sure if that sound comes
from specific articulation that he's using,
or am I just hearing this beautiful music
that is coming straight from his heart?
(orchestra plays)
- [Crew Member] We're ready.
- Great, so first, let me play with this piano
because I haven't played this song in 20 years.
(crew members laugh)
- [Crew Member] It's like riding a bike.
(introspective piano music)
- It's interesting because you know,
this show wouldn't have happened without us
being in this terrible pandemic.
And it's forced people to become creative
in a different way.
For about two or three months in New York City,
at seven o'clock every evening,
people would open their windows and clap
and cheer and make noise.
And if they were in their cars, they'd honk horns,
and that was to honor all of the frontline workers.
So one day, I just spontaneously started singing
"The Impossible Dream" out the window.
Everybody on the street stopped and they looked up
and I thought, "Oh, oh, okay." (chuckles nervously)
And so the next night, I hear from somebody
from the street say, "Sing the song!"
(laughs) I thought "Oh, oh, okay."
And I sang the song again. (people clapping)
But I think the thing that struck me the most about it
was I saw a neighbor a few weeks after that
and he came up to me and said,
"I want to thank you, I come out every single night,
I come out with my family and my boys.
We come out to hear you sing,
it's the one moment of my day when I get to feel joy."
And I went "ah!"
because I'd forgotten the power of art,
the power that we are able to give as artists.
That I think is what
the spirit of Christmas is really about.
It's joyous.
It's a celebration of a birth, it's a celebration of art.
It's a celebration of people working together.
That's why people love to come here
for the Christmas concert.
That's why it's sold out for all of these 20 years.
When you come and see people singing together
and making art together, it's like,
"Oh, that's what human beings can do when we decide
to do something together for a common goal."
Look what beauty we can make.
We can cure a pandemic.
There are so many things we can do when we put
our minds to it and work together.
Miraculous things happen.
(soft piano music)