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September 10, 2025 12 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Al Trans Siberian Orchestra, they're going on tour again and
it sounds like it's going to be a fabulous tour.
I mean it always is, but I think especially good
this year. And Ali tell us about it in a minute.
But Saturday November fifteenth at Paul Arena two thirty pm
and seven thirty pm, and then the next day, Sunday,
November sixteenth, at Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs two

(00:22):
thirty pm and seven thirty pm. And if you go
to TRANSI trans Dash Siberian dot com and go to
the tour tab, you can find the links there. The
pre sale goes starts tomorrow and the bigger sale starts
to the next day, so you can absolutely still get tickets.
And with that, I'm so happy to welcome back to
the show. Al Petrelli, who is the music director, the

(00:45):
musical director of Trans Siberian Orchestra and has just done,
you know, so much in rock and roll. We talked
last time about his time with Alice Cooper. He's done
so many things. It's really good to have you back. Al,
thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Brock, thank you so much for having me again. And
I hope all is well at home, and everybody's good
by you.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
You know, I always like to talk to you about
some non music stuff when and then also about the
music stuff, and so I always want, I always want
to make sure to ask you about you have.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
You have five kids.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I think two of them either are or were in
the military at the Navy and Coastguard maybe, And I
have a vague recollection that you told me last time
that maybe one of them isn't in anymore, but I
could be confusing things. So how are your kids and
how are your military kids?

Speaker 4 (01:34):
All they're fantastic, Thank you so much for saying that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, my oldest son just made chief Warrant Officer, so
he's stationed in DC now, which is a lot closer.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
Than when he was in San Diego.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
M H. And my youngest son, who was in the Navy,
he was an engineer on a nuclear sub out of
Pearl Harbor, ended up a couple of years ago being
one of two sailors that you who were accepted into
the Space Force. Well now he's in the United States
Space Force, so he's a buzz light year dude.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Wow, I need one more thing to worry about in
my life.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, right, where is he stationed?

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Vandenburg in California? Kandenburg Airport Space?

Speaker 1 (02:09):
All right, Yeah, I wonder if the since he's not
in Colorado, then all this stuff Trump is doing, probably
moving Space Command headquarters might not affect might not affect him.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I don't know if he'll get moved to Alabama or not.
But wow, that's sure.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
Yeah. But you know, I couldn't be prouder and terrified
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
So that's amazing. That's amazing. You should be and I'm
sure you are extremely proud. Tell me any I don't
want to spend all the time only talking about your
military kids.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Tell me anything about any of your other kids.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, my three older boys, the two on the outsides,
are in the military. And my middle son, Jamie is
an incredible musician, crushing it living in the city, producing
a lot of records, writing a lot of film score
TV commercials. You know, he just had that thing where
he was a great bass player as a kid and
then start a composition on piano and guitar and I
look at him, I go, I wasn't that good when I.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Was your So wow, very practical as well.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
And my two younger girls Olibya's fourteen and Leyland just
turned nine, you know, so they're just hitting you know,
Layla's hit. Excuse me, Lvy's a teenager now wanting to
go to every show that's at Madison Square Garden that
comes to town.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
So I'm going broke doing that. Uh huh, you.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Know, uh, Layla, she's nine years old, man, Skittles and
rainbows everywhere.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
It's a great age, absolutely great age. And just for
for listeners who aren't up on the terminology. Uh. Since
I'm from New York originally, although I didn't live there
very long, and I went to college in New York
and saw a lot of concerts at Madison Square Garden.
When Al says my kid lives in the city, that
means that means he lives in Manhattan.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
So in case, in case he worried up on that.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Yeah, I got to be clear at some point. So
he lives in the city.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Now, he lives in the city, the city, all right,
One other non tso question and then we'll get to
and then we'll get to ts. So is it true
that you dropped out of the Berkeley School of Music,
which is one of the elite music schools in the world.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Is that true?

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, the middle of a second semester.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So my question for you is, can you please tell
me a little bit about making that decision.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
When I went.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
There in the first semester, I was it was just
one of the most fantastic experiences ever because I was
introduced to thousands of musicians from all over the world,
people that I never would have met, cultures I was
not familiar with, people who were enjoying different genres of
music that I wouldn't gravitated towards, you know.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
And the first couple of people that I met who became.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
The best of friends that have remained the best of
friends over forty years later. One was a keyboard player
named Derek Sherinian who played with me with Alex Cooper's band.
I met him in college and then he went on
to join the band Dream Theater and Fantastic. But he
was from Santa Cruz, California. He might have been from
Mars considered I grew up on Long Island.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
He didn't get it, you know.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
And the other guy was a drummer named Will Calhoun
who went on.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
To start the band Living Color.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
So that was my first introduction of my top tier,
top shelf talent, and we started a band, and you know,
Derek and I were like, you know what, this place
is great. But you know, he went to LA and
I went back to New York City. Was like, I
just want to go cut my teeth. Will ended up
staying on and graduating from Berkeley and doing really well
for himself, but just the curriculum, I got bored. You know,

(05:35):
I'm not a school person. You know, I go into
classes and I just wanted to play the guitar. And
I played with some great people and I got a
really great education in that short period of time, mostly
from hanging out with incredible players. I think with guitar
players up there, I turned the corners like I gotta
go practice.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
I wasn't that jammed up with American government in history
or calculum.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
No no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I had a couple of friends of mine
who was started like make some noise in themselves, Paul
O'Neil in particular, you know, on the streets in New
York City. And I told my parents and much to
this issue, and I said, listen, I got a plan.
You gotta trust me on this one. You know, so
I decided to leave fantastic experience. I've got a bunch
of my students now who have just started going up
to Berkeley and experience out of my bostening and go.

(06:19):
It's fantastic if you can make it through, wonderful if
you don't take what you want from there and apply
it later on.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
But I decided to hit the streets in New York
City in like.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Late eighty four eighty five and really want to make
a go for an old school style.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Huh, so you were doing that well?

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Actually while I was in college in Manhattan, I feel
like I wish I had known you then I could
have gone to senior play somewhere while I was in
the city.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Well, we probably eating the Gray's Papaya or you know,
some piece of place.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, right, so that's great.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
We are talking with al Pacerelli, who is the musical
director of Trans Siberian Orchestra. They're coming to Colorado in November.
Denver at Baul Arena on Saturday November fifteenth, two thirty
pm and seven thirty pm, and then Sunday, November sixteenth,
the next day down in the Springs that brought more
World Arena at two thirty pm and seven thirty pm,
and a Rod found a really easy link TSO tickets

(07:17):
dot com. T SO tickets dot com and it just
redirects to the tour page at the Translibrian Orchestra. But
TSO tickets dot com. So every every year is great.
But I get the sense that you think that this
year is going to be a particularly special tour.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Can you tell me why?

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Well, every year we finished up okay.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Last year we finished up okay, got home, spent a
couple weeks catching my breath, had holidays with the family,
and by the second week of January, historically we get
together with our managers, a couple of department heads. They say, okay,
great run last year, fantastic in the books.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
How do we make next year better?

Speaker 2 (08:02):
And I think last time we talked, I made the
comparison of the Super Bowl team. Whoever wins the super Bowl,
you got the ring, you got the trophy, fantastic, congratulations,
you killed yourself to get to that point, you deserve it.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Common no guarantee you we're going to win the super
Bowl next year. So what do they do?

Speaker 2 (08:18):
They get to all season, pre season, deconstruct the whole
thing and rebuild it, you know, take a look at
like little parts. You know, the devil's in the details.
What can we work on where you know, what did
we fall a little bit short on that we could
make better?

Speaker 4 (08:30):
How can we change a little bit to confuse the
opposing teams?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Next year not too different than how we look at
it here, we get home in the middle of January,
say okay, that one was in the books.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
High five. Next take the whole thing apart. We have
to make it better next year.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
We have to make it different next year, yet keep
it familiar, because folks in your community love their tradition,
their holiday tradition intact. So musically, my job is to think, Okay,
what songs haven't we done before? What songs have we
never played before? What songs haven't we done it ten
or fifteen years? What songs make sense to surround Paul

(09:03):
o' neil's beautiful story The Ghost to Christmas Eve. So
not only that, but we have the best apartment heads
in the world who love this thing as much as
I do, who have been with us from the jump
as well, and they do the same thing. By the
second week of January. How can we make the stage
look different. How can we make the pyro even crazier?
What can we do with the lasers, what can we
do with the moving? Trust is what haven't we done before?

Speaker 4 (09:25):
Yeah? And that's what we do every year.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
So this year we're going to perform The Ghost of
Christmas Eve Live, which has become a lot of people's
favorite of Paul and Neil's many stories.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
We did the.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Movie back in ninety eight, and it was it just
became one of those things like Charge Brown's Christmas were
going thirty fourth Street, Ghost of Christmas Eve.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
And Rudolph you know. Yeah, Wow, we're in a good
company now, dude.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
So we're gonna bring it live. But the folks and
you and I talked about this to come back year
after year after year. I could call them the repeat offenders, right.
The first thing I wanted them to notice is that
when the curtain comes up, everything about the stage and
the placement is completely different than years past, you know,
so the visual I want to put people back on
their heels. Then it's the opening of the show something

(10:09):
we haven't done and maybe I don't know fourteen years,
you know, and a spin on that not the exact
same way we did it. Years ago, but I want
to bring these songs to life the second half of
the show. Of course, we're gonna play everybody's favorite songs,
but this year, in particular, we're celebrating the twenty fifth
anniversary of.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
Beethoven's Last Night since it was released, So.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
We wanted to take our hats to the great composer
and pull in the those beautiful arrangements in these compositions
by doing a small mini set from that record, which
we've never done on a Winter show ever. Well, and
you know, more pyro, morel lasers, more stuff, man, Bigger
is better, dude.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah. I also want to let audio files know that
Transcese beor An Orchestra is actually putting out a special
double album of Beethoven's Last Night, and it's going to
come out in two different additions, and you know, you
can go look that up. And if you love Vinyl
the way I do, you can go buy this brand
new TSO album Transreimirian Orchestra album.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
So it sounds like it's gonna be an amazing show.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Do you do you still have the violinist who I
can't take my eyes off of. Even though you're fine looking,
I can't stop looking at her.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I should mean and been with me for decades, man,
she goes nowhere.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
What a beautiful human being with a beautiful woman, and
what a talent.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, incredible man.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
I say, listen, I need you to do something for me,
and she's and I'll write something out real quick and
she'll look at it, she'll sight read it, and she'll
nail it from the jump. That woman is spectacular on
and off the stage. So yeah, she'll be there. Dude,
I got you.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Did she have some fancy musical education or is she
kind of mostly self taught like you.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
I'm pretty sure she had formal education. I don't know where. Yeah,
but you know, you're not that good of a reader
or well versed in.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
The classics if you don't have some sort of formal background.
But I know that she's constantly working, constantly playing, constantly exploring.
One minute she's listening to I don't know a Moshaw
can chat on. Next time she's listening to Stephan Rippelli.
You never know what that girl, she's fantastic

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