Peter Sprague’s free Christmas Eve concert in Del Mar will go on, rain or shine
The show will go on Wednesday in Del Mar, rain or shine, for the 47th annual edition of award-winning guitarist and composer Peter Sprague’s free Christmas Eve concert. It will feature more than a dozen leading San Diego area musicians at the event, which is usually held in the grassy park amphitheater adjacent to L’Auberge Del Mar hotel.
“There’s a 95 percent chance of rain on Christmas Eve,” Sprague said. “If the weather is wet, we’ll move the concert indoors to the Diamond Ballroom at L’Auberge. I’ve performed in the ballroom at private events, but we’ve never held the Christmas Eve concert in it before. There’s a lot of underground parking under the hotel, so it’s very convenient whether the concert is indoors or outdoors.”
Sprague’s first free holiday concert took place on Christmas Eve in 1978 and featured his one-woman, five-man band, The Dance of the Universe Orchestra. It was held across the street from the hotel on the sidewalk in front of Del Mar’s now-defunct Ocean Song Gallery & Earth Song Bookstore in the center of town. As the event grew in popularity, it drew increasingly large audiences — and police warnings about overcrowding.
The concert has been held in the amphitheater since 2001. It has become a harmonious tradition for the several hundred people who attend each year and for the guest musicians who are featured. Sprague estimates that only four or five of the previous concerts were moved indoors because of inclement weather conditions.
“I don’t think we ever thought we’d be doing it this long,” said Sprague, who has performed in the bands of such jazz giants as Sonny Rollins and Chick Corea.
The format for this year’s concert will be the same as in recent decades. Sprague and his current band will open the show. The second set will team them with an array of guest artists.
“We’ll play a fair amount of Beatles’ songs and my arrangements of the music from ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’,” Sprague said. “We’ll also do Crosby, Stills & Nash’s ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ and Steely Dan’s ‘Any Major Dude,’ which I don’t think we’ve ever done before at one of these shows.”
Peter Sprague’s 2025 Christmas Eve concert
Featuring: Peter Sprague, Leonard Patton, Allison Adams Tucker, Fred Benedetti, Tripp Sprague, Danny Green, Mackenzie Leighton, Duncan Moore, Kate Sprague, Regina Benedetti, Julia Benedetti, Riley Fleck and Layse & Enzo Johnson
When: 1-4 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 24
Where: L’Auberge Del Mar, 1540 Camino Del Mar, Del Mar
Admission: Free
Phone: 858-386-1336
Online: petersprague.com
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