Motown and disco will get you dancing at symphony’s pops concert

It’s that time of year when the Macon Symphony Orchestra wants you out of your seat and dancing along.

The group’s annual Pops Concert will happen Saturday night as a tribute to Motown and disco. This is the 38th year for the show, which features the orchestra playing popular music with an outside group.

“There is a dance floor, so that is hugely popular,” said Sheryl Towers, CEO of the Macon orchestra. “It’s a very lively energetic evening with people from all walks of life on that dance floor dancing together and just having a great time.”

The orchestra will be joined by an eight-piece rock band and singers from Jeans ‘n Classics, a group out of Ontario.

“They have become tremendously popular ... for playing with symphony orchestras,” Towers said. “They are very well known for their popularity in playing Motown and disco.”

It will be the first time Jeans ‘n Classics has performed in Georgia.

“There will be two 50-minute halves of every wonderful disco piece you ever wanted to hear and Motown piece,” said Peter Brennan, who is the founder of Jeans ‘n Classics.

The show will feature several singers, and they will perform everything from Smokey Robinson, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye to Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Jackson.

“You might even hear ‘YMCA,’ ” Brennan said. “For the uninitiated, it’s a nice, big, wonderful experience. ... It is grand stuff to play. There’s an energy to it that’s absolutely contagious. People dance in the aisles.”

Towers said the orchestra chooses a different theme for each year’s pops concert. Last year, it was a Michael Jackson tribute, and the year before that it was the Eagles.

“It’s such a fun event and I think for me one of the most exciting things about it is it just brings together our community,” she said. “So much diversity in our community. It just has great appeal to quite a number of diverse people and I love that.”

She said the pops concert typically draws a crowd of about 1,500. The Macon Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1976 and is celebrating its 40th season.

“This is an event which has huge appeal to a wide reach of our community,” Towers said. “It is so much fun. After people attend a pops event and just experience the energy and the great fun of the evening, they typically get hooked.”