The beau­ty and bus­tle of the hol­i­day sea­son seems to start ear­li­er and ear­li­er each year, but some tra­di­tions re­main true: Christ­mas be­gins with the Mar­i­onettes. Last year's fund-rais­ing con­cert se­ries of­fered A Prayer for Peace. This year, the Mar­i­onettes will Cel­e­brate Hope along­side sis­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion bpTT Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra.

The show al­so marks a mile­stone for the re­la­tion­ship be­tween bpTT and the Mar­i­onettes, as they com­mem­o­rate 40 years of part­ner­ship. "BPTT be­gan its part­ner­ship with Mar­i­onettes in 1972, and our com­mit­ment has en­dured be­cause we share the be­lief that arts and cul­ture can be used as a pow­er­ful agent for self-de­vel­op­ment," ex­plained bpTT pres­i­dent Norm Christie.

The two or­gan­i­sa­tions will of­fer their spe­cial free matin&ea­cute;e for se­nior cit­i­zens and chil­dren's homes. The tal­ents of Jacque­line John­son, Her­mi­na Charles, Di­a­hann White, along­side young soloists Do­minique Akal, Sharis­sa Came­jo, Chereeme O'Shaugh­nessy and An­nalise Em­manuel will be on show.

The show runs from De­cem­ber 6-9 with shows at 7.30 pm Thurs­day through Sat­ur­day, and 5 pm on Sun­day. The chorale's two hol­i­day CDs-A Christ­mas Al­bum, which fea­tures ear­li­er col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Rene­gades, and Sing Noel will al­so be on sale dur­ing the con­cert, and the full al­bums and in­di­vid­ual tracks are avail­able on­line at iTunes, CD­Ba­by.com and Trinidad­Tunes.com.

For more in­for­ma­tion, call 790-1751 or e-mail@mar­i­onetteschorale.com

For the lat­est in­for­ma­tion, vis­it the Mar­i­onettes' web site at http://www.mar­i­onetteschorale.com, and their Face­book page at http://www.face­book.com/mar­i­onetteschorale.