Trans-Siberian Orchestra returns to Charlottesville with its haunting seasonal songbook (2025)

“The Lost Christmas Eve,” the double-platinum-selling third album in a trilogy by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, explores love, loss, estrangement, forgiveness and restoration through the touching tale of a father and son. The drummer who has spent three decades touring and performing in the band said he never fails to be amazed by the way audiences embrace the music, the stories and the magic.

“It gets bigger every year, but we started out quite humbly,” drummer Jeff Plate told The Daily Progress. “This year, we will have played to over 20 million people.”

Thursday’s scheduled performance at Charlottesville’s John Paul Jones Arena marks the 20th anniversary of the album’s release. One of its tracks, “Wizards in Winter,” became a fan favorite and earned a spot in subsequent tours with its stirring rock-orchestra sound.

The band is celebrating not only the 20th anniversary of a hit album, but also the milestones of reaching its 20 millionth concertgoer and raising $20 million by donating at least $1 of each ticket sold to charity. Bringing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Lost Christmas Eve” back to arenas this year has felt special since rehearsals began, Plate said.

“It’s going to be another one of these shows and another one of these tours,” Plate said.

Plate has created a holiday tradition of his own in watching from behind his drum kit as audiences across the country sing heartily to exuberant numbers and then stand in stillness as the emotions of the quieter songs wash over them. He said he’s honored that these shows have become a cherished Christmastime tradition for many.

Orchestra founder Paul O’Neill’s vision for timeless messages of redemptive hope and love expressed through the emotional power of hard-charging melodic rock seemed ambitious when “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” the first album in the group’s Christmas trilogy, was released in 1996. Next came “The Christmas Attic” in 1998, and its classic hit “Christmas Canon,” which enlarged 17th-century composer Johann Pachelbel’s famed “Canon in D Major” with lyrics that lauded the wonder of Christmas Eve.

“The Lost Christmas Eve,” the trilogy’s final album, was recorded in 2004 and first performed live in 2012; “The Christmas Attic” wasn’t presented live until 2014.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s vision took the musicians straight to arenas and large venues; the band never opened shows for other acts or built a following through club gigs. Plate said that time, and devoted fans who come back year after year with their children and then later with their grandchildren, keep proving O’Neill right.

For Plate, as for his fans, the power of the songs never dims. “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” the band’s monster instrumental hit from “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” still stirs a visceral response in city after city.

“I’m still taken aback by how when we play ‘12/24,’ it electrifies the room,” Plate said. “We’ve played it thousands of times, but we get an electrical jolt from the audience every time.”

Plate said that when the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to chill the tradition, audience members embraced the livestream version.

“Once we did the livestream that year, it was the most-downloaded livestream of all time,” he said.

The emotional impact of “The Lost Christmas Eve” lies in the magic and mystery behind a reunion: a relationship restored between a heartbroken and embittered businessman and the son he last saw as an infant. The son, now an adult, works in a maternity ward, and the reunited pair spends Christmas Eve caring for babies in need.

At a time of year when cheerful images of snowmen and sugarplums take center stage, the wonder of Christmas often reveals itself through deeper, grittier stories of hearts saved and lives changed. O’Neill, who died in 2017, recognized that rock opera could pluck heartstrings in a different way that would prove meaningful and timeless.

“I’m in awe of Paul O’Neill,” Plate said. “He knew it was going to be a big thing, and it would last beyond us. This thing is still growing.”