December 12, 2025 – A fully-packed Santa's bag of musical delights awaits audiences at the Mariposa Yosemite Symphony Orchestra's Festive Holiday Concert, to be performed as a 2:00 P.M. Matinee on Saturday, December 20th in Mariposa County High School's Fiester Auditorium.
In addition to all else, two accomplished MYSO musicians will be featured in two very unusual solo turns: trained soprano Marit Bond (who is also the orchestra's keyboardist) will premiere Claude Debussy's late-career Christmas carol "Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maison." Translated as "Noel for homeless orphans," the 1915 work originally for voice and piano is atypical of Debussy's well-known style but IS a prime example of his final years of composition, when - dying from cancer, his music took a more conventional, if dark turn. The piece has been orchestrated by MYSO Founder/Conductor Les Marsden and will be sung by Bond in both Debussy's original lyrics and also in Marsden's new English text. Though ostensibly a Christmas carol, it was written in 1915, the second year of the "War to End All Wars," after Germany had invaded France on August 3, 1914. Debussy's anger at the destruction and loss of life in his country and resolve for retribution results in a very dark, fascinating and truly rare carol.
MYSO Principal Clarinet Dr. Patti Hamernik will perform another premiere: Marsden's arrangement of the famous "Queen of the Night" aria from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" (The Magic Flute) - originally for coloratura soprano but now arranged for E-flat clarinet. The aria is a renowned, highly difficult demonstration piece for the upper register of the female voice and a test for any soprano; the E-flat clarinet is pitched higher than the more common B-flat clarinet, making its oft-times shrill 
sound perfect for displaying the Queen's fury. Marsden's new arrangement is dedicated to the memory of Monte Gmur, longtime Fresno musical fixture and distinguished musician best known for his leadership of what has been described as the "crown jewel of his long career, the AUSA Sounds of Freedom Band." A man long respected and known by Marsden, Gmur passed earlier this year at the age of 75, and Dr. Hamernik played under his direction in that band.
Marit Medefind Bond (pictured left) is delighted to make her vocal debut with the MYSO. She grew up in Merced, graduating from Harvard University in 2012, and from Johns Hopkins with her MS (Nursing) in 2018. She has studied piano with Nancy Darrington, Judy Galetar, and Patrice Stribling-Nelson; and voice with Bill Pitzer, Sharon Graham, Jenni Samuelson, Sarah Whitten, and Lorraine Walsh. Favorite roles include Annie (Grace, Playhouse Merced), It's A Wonderful Life (Mary Hatch Bailey, Playhouse Merced), Mary Poppins (Mrs. Banks, Playhouse Merced), Princess Ida (Princess Ida, Agassiz Theatre), and Into the Woods (Jack's Mother, American Repertory Theater). She is a Registered Nurse and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist, and lives in Merced with her husband, James Bond.
Dr. Patti Hamernik (pictured right) is a Pediatrician and Principal Clarinet of the MYSO. Born and raised near Buffalo, 
NY, she studied and trained at State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo/Buffalo Children’s Hospital. She took a 17-year sabbatical from music while she pursued her medical education, but in her words, "Music called me home!" She resumed her musical journey as an avocation in Ohio, and then after she moved to California, she joined multiple community bands and orchestras in Fresno, Clovis, Kingsburg, Modesto, Merced, Stockton, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, and of course: Mariposa/Yosemite with the MYSO. Her musical highlights include performing at Carnegie Hall, in the Sydney Opera House (Australia,) both the 70th and 75th Anniversaries (in France) of the Normandy D-Day, 75th Commemoration of the Pearl Harbor invasion in Hawaii, in Italy - and for the Central Valley Honor Flights. Her special passions include honoring our nation's veterans and playing the E-flat clarinet (as demonstrated in the MYSO concert) and her greatest musical goal is to perform with the Buffalo Philharmonic under its notable music director JoAnn Falletta in the orchestra's Kleinhans Music Hall - and with the Doctor's Orchestra.
The MYSO's Festive Holiday Concert will also feature a tribute to the sesquicentennial of the great Anglo-African composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) whose "Christmas Overture" and "Rhapsodic Dance: The Bamboula" will be heard live, for the first time - in this entire region. Other programmed pieces include Edvard Grieg's "Holberg Suite" newly-arranged for symphony orchestra, a suite from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera about the clown who's crying on the inside - "Pagliacci" and the famous "Dance of the Hours" from Amilcare Ponchielli's opera "La Gioconda" - with both latter pieces filled with immediately-recognizable tunes. Other holiday pieces will be heard, including a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the passing of American composer Leroy Anderson (1908 - 1975) with one of the season's most famous compositions: "Sleigh Ride" and Marsden's "Sierra Christmas Party" closing the concert, as it has for every MYSO Festive Holiday Concert since the orchestra's first concert on December 21, 2002.
Tickets for the MYSO's Saturday, December 20th 2 PM Festive Holiday Concert are sold in advance online at discounted rates ($10 for Adults/$8 for Students) at the secure link: https://tinyurl.com/MYSOHoliday25 with prices increasing to $15 for Adults/$10 for Students at the door on the day of the concert. More information is available on the orchestra's website http://MYSO.live.
1) Marit Bond, soprano (pictured left)
2) Dr. Patti Hamernik, E-flat Clarinet (pictured right)
Source & photos: MYSO