[MUSIC] (Lauren) Hello and welcome to State of the ArtZ, a series dedicated to highlighting different art and happening here in Tucson and Southern I'm your host, Lauren Roth.

As you can see, we've made it Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance's cr And we're here to learn more about the Oro Valley Th e Oro Valley Festival of the Arts and Holiday Tree Lighting Celebration has been a Southern Arizona staple for the last 13 years.

T known for its one-of-a-kind seasonal items, handcraft goods, and holiday cheer.

With crowds of 30,000 people and with over 125 artisans, the two-day festival is one of the largest holiday arts celebrations.

This year, visitors can expect local performances, food trucks, family art activities, and even a visit from Santa himself.

Joining me now is Matt Rolland, who's the Director of Programs at the Southern Arizona Arts and Cult Thanks for speaking with me today Matt.

(Matt) Thanks (L auren) Tell me a little bit I believe this is called Catalyst and what is this room about in this space?

How does it tie into the Oro Valley Festival of the Arts and Holiday Tree Celebration?

(Matt) So Catalyst, this is our home base here.

We Tucson Mall.

We moved here in 2019.

But SAACA, as we all call our organization, we started in Oro Valley as the greater GOVAC, many years ago.

And it's been ou privilege to partner with the town for many holiday festival and a tree lighting festival.

And so we get to move our operations from here up to Oro Valley the first December and set up shop.

(Lauren) Great.

Tell me a little bit about what we will find when we go.

(Matt) Well the it 's a great time, a gr holiday gifts, to meet artists from all over the Southwest and just to ring in the holidays.

We have performance with over 300 performers that come.

So it features community choirs, youth ensembles, professional jazz ensemble It's a really great mix of live music, 150 artisans, so they're spread out throughout t Oro Valley Marketplace and you can find a little bit of everything.

Fine art painting, sculpture, ornaments, holiday gifts, kind of the whole price range and you get to meet the artist face to face one-on It's all the artists there that make their work And so on top of all that, lots of kids activities and fun and family activities too.

(Lauren) What do you think makes this fes unique and sort of what does it brin (Matt) What strikes me is how community come together at this event.

So we have the safety community.

We have the Golder Ranc Department, the Oro Valley Police Department.

They come out, they do free photos we present a parade.

The high schools are involved, so Ironwood Ridge comes out with their marchi the Santa procession comes out, Santa comes in from the North Pole for t But we also have the Oro Valley Youth Council, the Parks and Recrea a lot of different community groups are all coming together to celebrate the holidays, ring in the holidays, and of course ar tists and give them a good weekend.

(Lauren) I hear that there is something called the Tuba Fest?

(Matt) Tuba Christmas.

(Lauren) T Explain Tuba Christmas to (Matt) This is the only place in Arizona you can hear Tuba Christmas, and it's a nationwide gathering.

And it meets every year at the Oro Valley Holiday Festival of the Arts.

Over 80 tubas and euphonium players come together.

It's led by a U of A music pr come together, they all rehearse that day, decked out in their best holiday sweaters, of course, and they play holiday carols.

And to tubas and euphoniums.

(Lauren) Is anybody welcome?

(Matt) Absolutely anyone.

So you search Tuba Christmas, if you play tuba, if you play e you can register and then they'll giv rehearsal site and then you show up and learn the music and you get to play along.

If you're not a tuba player, you can come along and it's a sing-along.

(Lauren) Okay, or you can become a tuba pla days perhaps.

Twice actually, it's two days long, isn't it?

What is one of your favori Oro Valley Festival of the Arts and Holiday Tree Celebration?

(Matt) For me, I love seei visual arts are always amazing, best artists, artisans you can see anywhere.

But we have a lot of different performances spread So we have Red Herring Puppets does a free holiday puppet s We have some performance artists from Studio Create c They have a winter wonderland photo backdrop.

So you can meet the live performer, take a ph them.

We have the Oro Valley Youth Council, they do games and arts and crafts activities there.

So there's a lot of hands-on unique performances you only see one time and they're really there, designed to be in that place.

(Lauren) Thank you so much for speaking with this.

We all look forward to that (Matt) Yeah, I'll see you there.

(Lauren) The Oro Valley Festival of the Arts and Holiday Tree Lighting Celebration will be held Saturday and Sunday, December 2nd and 3rd at the Oro Valley Marketplace.

Admission is completely free, so bring all your friends Thanks for joining me today.

I'm Lauren Roth, and we'll see you again next time on State of the ArtZ.

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