Lisa Rock’s “A Carpenters Christmas”

Tower Theatre Executive Director Ray Solley is fond of saying there are no “silent nights” at the historic downtown theater during the holiday season. Thanks to the pandemic, he was faced with a silent December. After closing in March along with most of the rest of Bend due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the Tower reopened in July for limited-capacity, socially distanced events. But with the recent two-week shutdown extended in many Oregon counties, including Deschutes, even those smaller events became untenable.

Following the lead of other artists and studios in Central Oregon and across the country, the Tower shifted its holiday plans to live streaming. Jazz saxophonist, Jazz at the Oxford producer and Bend favorite Patrick Lamb will kick off a full month of streaming events promoted by the Tower on Friday with his version of pianist Vince Guaraldi’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“We don’t really think that people are ready right now, especially in Deschutes County, to go out and even in a crowd of, say, 50 — that’s not quite the way most people want to spend a holiday evening right now,” Solley said. “… The thing about fundraising is that we want to still make sure that people know that although we’re closed, we’re not dark. We are still doing programming, and now we’re gonna bring the programming into people’s homes as much as they want it.”

To pull off a virtual slate of holiday shows, the Tower teamed with artists who have a history with the theater, including pianist Jim Brickman, the Moscow Ballet, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Natalie McMaster & Donnell Leahy and more, as well as tapping local favorites such as KTVZ’s Bob Shaw. The streaming shows will run through New Year’s Eve, and Solley said the theater is planning more streams at least through January.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of my fellow colleagues in theaters around the country, especially in the Northwest, about streaming and is that something we should be doing, and if it is, how do we do it?” Solley said. “We made the decision early on that we’re not going to turn the Tower into a site for streaming. In other words, we’re not gonna bring in cameras — we already have the audio gear, but the video gear that would be required to do a professional streaming video. We’ve been looking for people that are doing that on their own and putting together programming that we could then offer an exclusive link to, charge for that like you would a ticket and then stream from their site or from their server.”

For every ticket the Tower sells to these live streams, 20% of the ticket price will go to the theater’s new Resiliency Campaign. The fundraising campaign, which kicked off last month, will help the Tower make up roughly $800,000 in losses from March through December due to the pandemic. (The theater did receive Paycheck Protection Program funds and other grants, including a $269,000 Oregon Cultural Trust CARES Act grant, according to Lisa Vann, the theater’s director of community engagement.)

“The Resiliency Fund is designated basically as a way to give general donations to the Tower,” Vann said, “so that we’re able to continue to be resilient and offer memories and connections in our community when we’re able to open back up and people are ready to come back to the theater. So it’s basically to help us continue to stay alive.”

Lamb, known for his work as a bandleader as well as sideman for artists such as Diane Schuur, Gino Vannelli, Smokey Robinson and many more, was a natural fit for the Tower’s first live stream. In fact, before the second Oregon lockdown Lamb and Solley were talking about hosting socially distanced Jazz at the Oxford shows at the Tower. (The 2020-2021 Jazz at the Oxford season has been canceled, but Lamb said he is looking forward to a 2021-2022 season.)

“It really gets back to the basics of what music is all about, which is lifting people’s spirits and joy and getting people away from the things that are bringing them down,” Lamb said. “In this case they’ve got a lot of (stuff) bringing them down. … There’s a lot of stuff against them, and so people are looking for that connection. And these live streams are a little window to our universe, directly to people who want to connect.”

His band for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will feature guitarist Dan Balmer, bassist Phil Baker of Pink Martini, pianist Steve Christofferson and drummer Alan Jones. The show is a reprise of his performance last year at The Old Church in Portland, where the show was to be hosted this year, too, before the second lockdown.

“I just came up as a kid loving the show, and I know it’s something that both I am in love with and the people are in love with,” Lamb said. “When you find that as an artist, you have a winner. It’s something that all the kids love, it’s something that the parents love. It has a beautiful story of what’s important during the holidays.”

Since the initial shutdown in March, Lamb has hosted roughly one live stream a week from his home studio in Portland, garnering more than 800,000 views, he said. (He’s in the process of moving to a new house just outside the city.) He’s also kept busy with online classes in Pro Tools and audio engineering via mixwiththemasters.com, and teamed with guitarist Michael Thompson (Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Michael Jackson and more) for the Thompson Lamb Project and the recent single “Cocoa Butter.”

“It takes courage to try new things, but for me the only thing to do has been to study and reevaluate who you think you might have been and who you are,” Lamb said.

“This situation is overwhelming in 20 different ways,” Lamb added. “I would just encourage people to figure out what they can do in their own way in their own world, and just take the small steps to keep moving forward.”

The Tower Theatre’s full live-stream schedule

7 p.m. Dec. 17 (stream available through Dec. 25) — Natalie McMaster & Donnell Leahy “Celtic Family Christmas”

5 p.m. Dec. 18 (stream available through Dec. 26) — We Banjo 3’s “A Winter Wonderful” with special guests Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Skerryvore

5 p.m. Dec. 19 — Moscow Ballet’s “Great Russian Nutcracker”

5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 20 (stream available through Dec. 27) — Lisa Rock’s “A Carpenters Christmas”

6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 21 (stream available through Dec. 28) — Bob Shaw in Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”

6 p.m. Dec. 23 (stream available through Dec. 25) — Blind Boys of Alabama Christmas show

6 p.m. Dec. 30 — Naturally 7’s “2020 Year in Review”

7 p.m. Dec. 31 — Majesty — A Tribute to Queen