The Irish Tenors bring 'A Family Christmas' to Nashua Center for the Arts on Dec 5

Anthony Kearns, Ronan Tynan and Declan Kelly play a Saturday-night holiday show in the downtown arts center Nashua spent two decades trying to build.

The first Saturday in December on Main Street usually means coats buttoned to the chin and lights going up in the shop windows. This year it also means The Irish Tenors. The trio plays Nashua Center for the Arts on Saturday, Dec 5, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available through the venue's own box office.

The show is part of the group's "A Family Christmas" program, and according to the tour's billing the lineup is Anthony Kearns, Ronan Tynan and Declan Kelly, performing with a full orchestra. That's the format this group is built for: three big voices, lush arrangements, and a set that moves between the sacred and the sentimental — exactly the mood of an early-December night out.

Nashua's date sits in the thick of the group's New England swing. The tour is also stopping at State Theatre New Jersey on Nov 29. For anyone in southern New Hampshire, though, Main Street is the easy call — no Boston traffic, no Route 3 crawl on a Saturday in December.

For anyone in southern New Hampshire, Main Street is the easy call.

The room is part of the story. Nashua Center for the Arts is still a young venue, but it was a long time coming. The city first floated the idea of a downtown arts center back in 2002, and a 2014 plan would have stacked theaters on top of a parking garage a block off Main, as the Telegraph reported at the time. What finally got built is the $25 million center at 201 Main Street, on the corner of West Pearl, which opened in April 2023. Its main room is the Bank of America Theater, and the building, designed by ICON Architecture, mixes modern lines with historic touches like old window frames and exposed brick.

That scale suits a show like this. An orchestra-backed vocal trio needs a proper theater with real acoustics, but the warmth of a holiday concert gets lost in a cavernous hall. A mid-size downtown house gives you both — and lets you walk out afterward into a lit-up Main Street instead of a parking lot off the highway.

A few things to know: this is an evening show on a weekend in peak holiday season, so book dinner downtown early if you're making a night of it, and buy tickets through the venue's site rather than resale listings, where prices have been all over the map. If you're bringing grandparents or kids — and the program's name suggests plenty of people will — check accessibility and seating details with the box office ahead of time.

Nashua waited twenty years for a room like this downtown. Spending a December Saturday in it, with three tenors and an orchestra, seems like a fine way to enjoy the result.

Sources: The Irish Tenors' 'A Family Christmas' Tour — 27 East (27east.com); The Irish Tenors: A Family Christmas at State Theatre New Jersey — New Jersey Stage (newjerseystage.com); Nashua launches new Center for the Arts — NHPR (nhpr.org); Nashua opens its new Center for the Arts — NH Business Review (nhbr.com); Nashua performing arts proposal would build parking garage, put theaters on top — Nashua Telegraph (nashuatelegraph.com); Nashua Center for the Arts (nashuacenterforthearts.com); JamBase listing (jambase.com)