ORLANDO, FL (CelebrityAccess) – Grammy Award-winning musician, producer, author and founding member of the hard rock bands Alter Bridge, Creed, and Tremonti – Mark Tremonti isn’t resting on his laurels this holiday season and has announced the launch of his latest charitable effort, The Smile for Stella Tremonti Down Syndrome Clinic (SMILE) in Orlando, which opened in October of this year.
He also put his spin on the Christmas Songbook by releasing his first-ever Christmas album, Christmas Classics New & Old, via Mark Tremonti Music this past October.
Tremonti’s passion for singing Frank Sinatra was the road that led to raising money for a cause near and dear to his heart – The National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS). After the birth of his daughter Stella in 2021, who at nine months was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and had to have heart surgery, Tremonti responded to the news in kind by developing a new charitable organization, Take a Chance for Charity. His live show, Tremonti Sings Sinatra, became a platform to raise funds to support the NDSS, spawning the opening of SMILE in partnership with Avent Health. Tremonti passionately exclaims that this is one of his “greatest accomplishments.”
Tremonti says that since he began singing Sinatra – friends and peers encouraged him to take on this newest venture and create the Christmas album mentioned above. Christmas Classics New & Old is a collection of loved holiday classics sung in Tremonti’s smooth Sinatra-style vocals. This album’s special treat is his original track, “Christmas Morning.” The original makes you swear you’ve heard it somewhere before, evoking just a little of the heart-warming nostalgia of the holiday season. This original, well-written and composed piece will surely become a beloved Christmas classic. Those interested can also check out the song’s video featuring “Claymation Tremonti,” created to be reminiscent of the many classic holiday shows we all know and love.
Watch Tremonti’s (fan-filmed) “Christmas Morning” performance HERE.
On December 16, as part of his Mark Tremonti Sings Frank Sinatra Christmas special, he performed at the Walt Disney Theater located inside of the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando with proceeds supporting Take a Chance for Charity. Additionally, proceeds from his new holiday album will raise funds for the NDSS.
The exclusive charity event began with performances of 11 Sinatra classics (see setlist below) with Tremonti backed by surviving members of the ‘Ol Blue Eyes’ band: Mike Smith (sax), Carey Deadman (trumpet), Joel Spencer (drums) and Dan McIntyre (guitar) in addition to many A-list session players.
After a carefully planned transition featuring “Carol of the Bells,” Tremonti returned to the stage to dazzle the holiday audience with a collection of 10 songs off his new album sprinkled with 3 additional surprise tracks performed for the audience. You can watch “Oh Holy Night,” released December 22, below.
A Howard Blake composed song titled “Walking in the Air,” was made for the 1982 animated film, The Snowman. The track was introduced to Tremonti only a week and a half before the performance (see interview transcript below for details) and has long been considered serene and whimsical, sung in a soft, ethereal manner and features a gentle, dreamy, and uplifting melody. That feeling was on purpose as Blake composed it to mirror the magical journey of the characters depicted in the film as they soar across the sky.
The highlight of the show for this music lover was Tremonti’s rendition of Blake’s song. The orchestration arrangement was impeccable with Tremonti’s tone evoking a sense of beauty and wonder. The entire audience, including myself, was amazed by the way this song could move so many so quickly.
Interview:
A week prior to his scheduled Orlando, Florida “Mark Tremonti Sings Frank Sinatra: Christmas Special”, Mark took the time to discuss all of the above and much more with Laura Rode from CelebrityAccess (LR).
LR: I love how smooth your voice sounds singing Sinatra and your Christmas Album.
MT: Well, thank you. I think his early his voice when he was young was incredible – later years he got a little looser with it, but when he was young, he was killer. But THANK You that’s awesome to hear. He’s always been a phenomenal singer.
LR: I agree he really is. This new album gave me the Christmas feels, it brought me back to those old familiar Christmas memories.
MT: That’s what it’s all about
LR: and it’s been well received too
MT: Thank you. It’s a little bit of a shame,
LR: How so?
MT: We were lucky enough to get the record on “YouTube” Which has the biggest possible audience you can have for it. However, when you look it up on YouTube it comes up on “YouTube Kids” and as YouTube Kids is super G-rated you can’t see any of the feedback or comments, they are disabled to protect kids, which makes sense. This is the first record I’ve ever had where I can’t see the feedback outside of Facebook. So that’s just a little frustrating – but it’s all positive for sure.
LR: You know it’s all good. Especially your new song “Christmas Morning.”
MT: Thank you, that was pretty cool and a fun challenge, to write an original Christmas song. I wanted to write it to sound like it could have been written in the 50s.
LR: It does and blends well with the album.
MT: Thank you very much.
LR: If I hadn’t done research prior, I’d not realize it wasn’t an old classic, it fits so well.
MT: That’s funny, I did an interview this morning, and the person said that they went and googled the song to see who had written it, and who had performed it back in the day, and he couldn’t find it. Haha I’m like, well, thank you -that’s all my work.
LR: Awesome, and the video, “Claymation Mark”, huh? Haha.
MT: Yeah, oh yeah. That was great. My wife is the funniest character in that video. Whenever she calls me now, that picture of her shows up on my phone.
LR: That’s hilarious.
MT: I laughed really hard when I first saw that.
LR: It’s entertaining for sure.
MT: Yeah, it was cool though, and it goes back to those old claymation Christmas movies I’ve always loved them
LR: Very cool. Share with me some of the backstory and inspiration behind this album.
MT: I got into singing big band jazz from doing Christmas stuff, you know singing Christmas songs at karaoke Christmas parties and whatnot. It just felt good. I found myself singing Bing Crosby or whatever and it really felt good to use my lower register and use the wide vibratos.
When I put out the Sinatra album itself a lot of people said, ‘hey It sounds like you should do a Christmas record now’. I said, hmmm ‘I should do a Christmas record’ and then I did just that! I love Christmas music and any excuse for me to get back into the studio with the guys I’m all in.
When I recorded the “Tremonti Sings Sinatra” record, we added 23 stringed instruments, a percussion section, and a choir, so it was the biggest production I’ve ever heard or been a part of.
LR: That’s super cool, so the live show is going to have as much backup and choir? What can we expect?
MT: The live show will have a smaller string section and smaller choir but the brass will be the same size so I have 17 Six strings and 6 choir members. There’ll be about 30 people on stage. This is a big stage and the biggest room we’ve ever played with the Sinatra thing. It’s at the Dr Phillips Performing Arts Center here in Orlando and it’s I think it’s 3,000 plus seat room which is for this stuff – a big room – it’s going to be very cool.
LR: Do you get overheated wearing the tux especially since you’re used to the rock star garb?
MT: You know when I put the tux on at first, I’m uncomfortable – like everything itches and uncomfortable but once I’m on stage – the light switch goes off and I immediately just kind of get into relax mode and my tux no longer bothers me
LR: It’s almost like you have to get into character for these shows in a sense.
MT: Yeah. Well, it’s just like when I do the rock thing My kids and whoever else ask are you nervous when you come out to an arena and see an arena full of people? I’m like no not nervous at all. They don’t understand how that could be. I’m like, well when I get on stage, it’s like the switch goes off and I’m a different person. I tell them the audience isn’t there looking at me. They’re looking at somebody else. I’m not my offstage person when I’m on stage. It’s like when you see a character upon a costume all sudden, he’s a different guy. That’s what it’s like with the tux -I’m putting on the uniform for this show.
LR: Are there any special moments or performances you can share?
MT: Yeah, I’ve got a lot of cool stuff happening. So, in the first half of the set, although it’s promoted as a Christmas show, I sing all Sinatra songs. I’m adding in songs I didn’t record on the record. I want to keep doing that every time I do a Sinatra show. So this one we’re doing ‘Summer Wind’ we didn’t do on the record and we’re doing ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’ and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ which also isn’t on the record.
LR: Nice.
MT: We’re also doing ‘New York, New York’, which is always a great live song and then the second half we’ll get into the Christmas set. We orchestrated the transition from the Sinatra songs to the Christmas set with ‘Carol of the Bells’. I’ll take a two-minute breather. It’s a halfway point. Helps me change my mood and come back out for Christmas. Then we’re going to have three new songs that weren’t on the Christmas record.
The biggest thing of the night for me came from an interview a couple of weeks ago. The gentleman asked me if I had heard a bunch of Christmas songs – this version from Josh Groban? Did you hear this? Did you hear that? and then he’s like you really must hear this one. It’s a UK-based song, it’s fantastic. OK, so I wrote it down on my notepad. Then when I was cleaning up my studio, I saw the note and I was like before I throw this notepad away let me type in this song. He suggested…. and it just blew me away – I love this song.
LR: What is it?
MT: It’s now one of my favorite songs ‘Walking In The Air’. I looked up many different versions. Then I called my guy who does the orchestrations and said can we turn around another song before the show? The show is seven days away now – He’s like “Man it’s like in the 11th hour for the show” I mean he had to orchestrate it all and make it whole and I have to learn and perform it. But when he heard the song, he’s like “This song is absolutely amazing – we have to do it!” We both had never heard it before that day and now we’re performing it with a 30-plus-piece band in about a week. I had to work around the clock, memorizing and getting the muscle memory for this. It’s a tough song to remember the lyrics. I try to not look at my sheet during the performances, but these lyrics are really tough, there’s no repetition in the song. It’s a beautiful incredible song AND there’s no mention of Christmas. It was put out in 1982 in a Christmas movie called ‘The Snowman’ in the UK. So over there it’s as common as hearing the Charlie Brown tune.
Actual performance note: Mark introduced this song to his audience in a more abbreviated version as he explained it to me. The orchestration arrangement was just impeccable. Tremonti’s rendition and tone of this song evoked a sense of beauty and wonder. The entire audience including myself was amazed by the way this song could move so many, so quickly.
About “Walking in The Air”
“Walking in the Air” is a song composed by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film “The Snowman.” The tone of the song is typically ethereal, serene, and whimsical. It often features a gentle, dreamy, and uplifting melody, mirroring the magical journey depicted in the film as the characters soar through the sky. The vocals are usually performed in a soft, almost ethereal manner.
MT: All together it’ll be 13 Christmas songs and 11 Sinatra songs. Since we have only 10 songs on the Christmas record which is nowhere enough for a live song set, we divided the show into these 2 sections.
LR: The January shows also?
MT: No, the shows in January are all Sinatra, nobody wants to hear Christmas after Christmas 😊
LR: So, there truly is only one Christmas show?
MT: Yes, there’s only one this year. But we’re filming so we have something that we can show business partners going forward what the show is all about so we can book shows more next year.
I plan to film it and have the proceeds go to the National Down Syndrome Society. Every show is for NDSS. Last year we did a Christmas show in London and Chicago. Those Christmas shows were more like a Sinatra show with five or six Christmas songs that we hadn’t recorded professionally yet. It was just kind of like, hey, let’s take this existing music and play it. Now we’ve got these things worked out to our specific arrangements. It’s much more well-rounded and worked out.
LR: Very nice. How has this all impacted the charity itself? You’re bringing a lot of positive awareness.
MT: It’s been so amazing. We just opened “The Smile for Stella Tramonti Down Syndrome Clinic” in Orlando Florida partnering with Advent Health.
LR: I love the image they are using of Stella.
MT: Thank you. It’s been the best achievement of my life. The thing I’m most proud of. We’ve already raised, I think, $160,000 for this show on the 16th, towards the clinic. We’re trying to find more and more people. I need to meet some billionaire that falls in love with this purpose and just like, here’s hundred million dollars. We’re doing the best we can, but when it comes to health care a few hundred thousand dollars doesn’t push the needle -it’s a big need to support the down syndrome community. There’s a lot of very generous people out there, it’s just a matter of bringing them all together. That’s right there is my goal with “Take a Chance on Charity”.
LR: Well, how is she (Stella) doing? She’ll be 3 in March, right?
MT: Yeah, she’s doing amazing. She had open heart surgery when she was 9 months old, and now she’s perfectly healthy. Perfect.
She is the sweetest little thing you’d ever seen in your life, and she has learned how to say “no”. So here she is now if she doesn’t like something it’s ‘NO”. It’s just like every other baby she’s to us – other than the few health things. My wife takes her to therapy mostly four or five days a week. Sometimes it’s two or sometimes even three different therapies in a day. But other than that, she’s just our baby. It doesn’t feel any different than any other baby.
She walked a year later than typical children – but we don’t notice differences.
She’s just our cute little cute little girl and if you don’t treat her any different, she’ll never know. She just loves all the attention – especially because she’s the only baby in our circle of friends. She’s just gushed over constantly. Our other 2 kids gush over her too my oldest is 18 and my second oldest is 15.
LR: So, they all get to come to your shows?
MT: They’re really excited about the Creed tour coming up. They don’t remember seeing it when they were babies, it’s something new for them. With Alter Bridge, we played some arenas in some countries over in Europe, but not in the States. But with Creed, all their teachers would say, I know your dad’s band I went to his concerts. Then with all the athletes playing Creed music during events like the World Series etc., they’re very excited about sports. So, they’re really looking forward to seeing the American arenas and amphitheaters tour. LR: Good. I know it was rocky with Creed for a bit.
MT: Yeah, I mean we’ve had our ups and downs, but it’s been a long time since we’ve worked together and everybody’s got the same goals now. So, we’re good everybody’s grown up a little bit more to it’s been 10-12 years. I think we all learned a lot separately and then you come back together – we’re all good now.
LR: That’s cool and good to hear. Any other projects with Alter Bridge or Tremonti, besides what you’re doing currently with Sinatra and Christmas?
MT: Yeah, I go into the studio in February to record a new Tremonti album. I’m working on that now as I’m trying to work on that and practice for the Christmas show.
LR: That’s a lot and when does the Creed Tour start?
MT: Early April 2024.
LR: Oof, you’ve certainly have your plate full.
MT: Oh yes, absolutely.
LR: How can people who want to support “Take a Chance for Charity” get involved and contribute, even if they’re not attending the shows?
MT: Go to: TremontiSingsSinatra.com or TakeAChanceForCharity.com click the donate link, that’s the best way to go about it. This way when people donate through us, we can see how much we’ve raised so we can keep track. Last year we raised over a million dollars. We’re on track to raise 2 million dollar this year. However, my goal is 100 million dollars, but not just with my project. I want to get other people involved and “Take a Chance for Charity” as well.
LR: What initiatives are you like working on to accomplish this?
MT: I want to find other artists and have them find an artist or old band that they are a big fan of and do some of the same as I did with Sinatra. For example, Myles Kennedy singing with Earth, Wind & Fire or get the guys from Earth, & Fire. Or get Lizzy Hale to record with Motown artists or Chris Daughtry to sing with Prince’s band that backed him up on On Purple Rain. Stuff like that, know, get artists to partner up with, folks to raise money for charity. So if you’ve always dreamed of singing an opera song and your rock fans wouldn’t get it or your jazz fan. Do it. You’re doing it for charity. So, you have the get out of jail free card.
LR: What message do you hope that attendees will take away from the shows for the holiday season and going forward?
MT: I just hope they’re inspired and enjoy the show. I hope it gets everyone in the Christmas spirit and I hope they’re inspired to do something good. Also, to know their tickets went to a great cause.
LR: Will you bring your daughter out on stage?
MT: Oh yeah. before I perform, she’s going to come out. I’m not gonna be with her because I told my wife and everybody else I cannot. If I see her and I talk to her during a performance I’ll get emotional and I can’t sing, this whole purpose is based around her.
LR: Especially in her little Christmas dress.
MT; I just can’t look. You’ll see next week, she’s the best.
LR: Thank you very much for your time today and have a great show on Saturday.
MT: Thank you, I’m excited, can’t wait.
December 16th Setlist:
Sinatra Set
Fun Time
Luck Be A Lady
Fly Me To The Moon
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
I’ve Got The World On A String
The Way You Look Tonight
Come Fly With Me
Summer Wind
Wave
New York, New York
My Way
Christmas Set
Carol Of The Bells
It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Jingle Bells
The Christmas Song
Christmas Morning
The First Noel
Walking In The Air
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Let It Snow
This Christmas (with Brian Marshall)
O Holy Night
Sleigh Ride
Photos from the concert: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=ConcertLifePix&set=a.870352991760608
