Celtic Woman is bringing its Silver Bells Christmas Tour 2026 to Atlanta Symphony Hall this December, teaming up with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for an evening of holiday standards and Irish vocal harmonies. The show is set for Saturday, December 19, running from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm, and Atlanta public broadcaster WABE is using it as the centerpiece of its latest pledge drive, dangling premium ticket packages to listeners willing to open their wallets for public radio.
According to WABE, donors who give $550 receive a pair of Harmony level tickets, which come with main orchestra section seating and access to WABE's Sugarplum and Spice pre-show reception. Step up to a $650 gift and donors move into the Serenade level, which includes front orchestra seating plus the same pre-show reception. At the top end, a one-time $750 gift secures Encore level seating, which bundles in pit seating, valet parking, the pre-show reception, and a meet and greet. WABE says its mission is to inform, inspire, reflect and empower the greater Atlanta community, and pledge perks like these are part of how the station funds that work. Prospective donors can call 678-553-3030 to participate.
A Two-Night Run the Pledge Drive Doesn't Mention
WABE's promotion centers on the Saturday show, but Celtic Woman's engagement in Atlanta is actually a two-night stand. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced in June that the group will perform twice at Symphony Hall — the Saturday, December 19 show at 8:00 pm highlighted by WABE, plus a Sunday matinee on December 20 at 3:00 pm, according to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It's worth noting that the WABE ticket packages are a fundraising allocation tied specifically to the station's pledge drive, not general box office inventory; tickets for both performances are also sold separately through the orchestra and Live Nation.
Atlanta Symphony Hall sits inside the Memorial Arts Building on the Woodruff Arts Center campus in Midtown, sharing the grounds with the High Museum of Art and the Alliance Theatre, per All Music Magazine. The address is 1280 Peachtree St NE. The hall holds 1,762 seats spread across three levels — 1,074 in the orchestra section, 349 in the lower balcony and 339 in the upper balcony — with pit seating for up to 82 more depending on how the stage is configured, according to the Woodruff Arts Center. That layout helps explain why WABE's donor tiers escalate the way they do, moving givers from the general orchestra floor up toward the more exclusive pit seats reserved for the top pledge level.
Grammy Pedigree on Both Sides of the Stage
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra brings serious institutional weight to the collaboration. Founded in 1945 as the Atlanta Youth Symphony, it's now a 27-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble and the largest performing arts organization in the Southeastern United States, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia. Celtic Woman brings its own commercial firepower: since forming in Dublin in 2004, the group has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide, notched 12 consecutive Billboard No. 1 World Music Album debuts, and racked up over 3 billion global streams, per Celtic Woman's own figures. The group earned its first Grammy nomination in December 2016, in the Best World Music Album category, for its studio release Destiny.
Much of that success traces back to public television. Celtic Woman's international breakthrough was driven by PBS specials starting with the group's 2004 Dublin debut, and its concert broadcasts remain fixtures of pledge drives at public stations nationwide, according to PBS Western Reserve. That two-decade relationship is exactly why a Celtic Woman ticket package makes sense as WABE's marquee pledge gift this season rather than a one-off promotional gimmick.
What's on the Setlist
The Silver Bells Christmas Tour 2026 program blends traditional Irish songs and Celtic Woman staples with symphonic arrangements of holiday classics including “Silver Bells,” “O Holy Night,” “Carol of the Bells” and “Joy to the World,” according to Scottsdale Arts, which is hosting the tour elsewhere on its route. The group was originally conceived as a one-time Dublin performance, described in music press as “Riverdance for the voice,” and it celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024 with a history of rotating featured vocalists and instrumentalists, per Wikipedia.
The concert arrives against a backdrop of turbulence at the Woodruff Arts Center, the umbrella organization overseeing Atlanta Symphony Hall and the orchestra. Hoodline previously reported on a leadership shakeup tied to $600,000 in missing funds at the High Museum of Art, one of the center's sister institutions. WABE's pledge campaign is separate from that matter, but it underscores how central donor support and ticket-driven fundraising remain to the broader Woodruff Arts Center ecosystem.
