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Ticketsarenowavailable for the second annual Festi- val of Trees: The Wonder of Christmas event, presented by Mercy Foundation North and Bank of Commerce Redding. The fundraiser is 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22 at the Tur- tle Bay Museum. Tickets are $75 each and available in advance only. All proceeds from the event will benefit hospice services through St. Eliza- beth Community Hospital, Mercy Medical Center in Redding and Mercy Medi- cal Center in Mt. Shasta. Guests will be invited to stroll through the museum to view 12 trees elaborately decorated by local design- ers as well as enjoy holiday appetizers and signature cocktails. Clear Cut band will per- form and a horse-drawn wagon will deliver guests to the museum entrance. Tickets are available by calling 247-3424 or visiting supportmercynorth.org. FUNDRAISER FestivalofTreestobenefitHospice Will Durst, an American political satirist who has been called a modern mix of Mort Sahl and Will Rog- ers, will perform his show Boomeranging: From LSD to OMG at 7 p.m. Saturday at the State Theatre in Red Bluff. Opening for Durst will be the local group Merry Standish Comedy. Durst co-hosts a monthly talk radio show with former San Fran- cisco Mayor Willie Brown called The Will and Wil- lie Show, which was for- merly on San Francisco's progressive talk radio sta- tion, KQKE. He writes several In- ternet columns, contrib- utes to Independent Me- dia Institute's Alternet. org on a regular basis, is a former contributing ed- itor to National Lampoon and George, and has con- tributed to various peri- odicals such as the New York Times, the The Funny Times and his hometown San Francisco Chronicle. His podcasts can be heard on audible.com. An Emmy nominee and host and co-producer of the PBS series Lively- hood, Durst is also a regu- lar commentator on NPR, CNN, and C-SPAN. He has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime. He received seven consecutive nomi- nations for the American Comedy Awards Stand Up Comedian of the Year. Durst premiered his one man show "The All-Amer- ican Sport of BiPartisan Bashing" at the New World Stages Off Broadway in New York City in August 2007 to rave reviews from both the New York Times and the New York Post. Locally, you can read Will's column in After 5 Magazine and the Daily News. Tickets are $15 and available in advance at the Tehama Country Vis- itor Center, 250 Antelope Blvd. in Red Bluff, and starting at 6 p.m. the day of the show in the box of- fice. COMEDY Will Durst to perform Saturday Santa will be coming to the Red Bluff Community Center Dec. 14 bearing gifts for kids 12 and younger. Children, accompanied by an adult, will be able 2-5 p.m. to meet Santa, take photos, play games, enjoy Christmas music, have re- freshments and go home with a gift. This event will represent the 24th year that the com- munity has come together to support the Children's Christmas Festival at the Community Center. The fes- tival was first envisioned by Diana Viso, the center's ac- tivities director, who grew up in a poor Louisiana fam- ily in which the only op- portunity to get a new toy was through a community Christmas program. Joining Diana in the early years were Ron Clark and Ben Sale who, with the support of friends and associates, made trips to Los Angeles bringing back loads of toys for local youth. With Santa on hand to greet the children, along with games and plenty of cook- ies and punch the program became a popular tradition for young and old. During the following years the program was spearheaded by the Red Bluff Kiwanis Club under the direction of Amanda Garrett, each year growing to provide Christmas cheer to more than 700 children. This year, under the aus- pices of Tehama Together, the tradition will live on and promises to be better than ever. Under the guidance of Larry Stevens, who has assisted with the festi- val since the early days, a planning committee has met to make necessary ar- rangements. Joining him are Jessie Woods of the Gold Exchange; Lou Aviles from the California High- way Patrol; Maria Salas of Hispana Americana News; Anabel Hernendez-Mejia of Organizaciones Unidas; Chris Hurton of the Com- munity Center; Robin Col- lins of Walmart and Candy Carlson and Orle Jackson of Tehama Together. Efforts to collect toys are being made by the local California Highway Patrol with its CHiPs For Kids Toy Drive. The public is asked to donate unwrapped toys at collection boxes in local businesses or drop them off at the Community Center or the CHP office on North Main Street. Major support has also been committed by the Community Center Auxil- iary, Green Waste, Walker Lithograph the Copy Cen- ter and Walmart. As plans are being final- ized, in addition to donated toys, volunteers are needed for setting up, holding and tearing down after the fes- tival. For more information, to donate or to volunteer, call the Community Center at 527-8177. TO DO Christmas fair will bring Santa to Red Bluff The North State Sym- phony's quest for a new conductor and music di- rector continues Saturday in Redding and Sunday in Chico with the concert "Imagine!," which show- cases the symphony in music that evokes earlier times and beautiful Euro- pean places. Brian Stone, the guest conductor for the night, is a Californian whose career has been spent primarily on the East Coast. He has chosen music by Mozart, Schumann and Dvorák, three pillars of classical music from Austria, Ger- many and Bohemia. Stone is one of four fi- nalists for the post, re- placing Kyle Pickett who led the orchestra for 14 years. Piano soloist Soheil Nas- seri has an international career and background. A Californian born to Iranian-refugee parents, Nasseri now lives in Ber- lin, where he devotes him- self to classical piano. He is on a tour of the United States, which includes sev- eral performances in his home state of California. The Piano Concerto by Robert Schumann, which Nasseri will play, is a powerful Romantic piece. Emotional and ex- pressive, it was written for Schumann's beloved wife Clara to play. Theirs was one of the great love stories of the 19th cen- tury, beginning when her father forbade her to marry Robert, and end- ing with Clara caring for Robert as he slipped into madness. The piano work is sand- wiched between a graceful early example of Mozart's genius, composed when Mozart was only 23. The concert concludes with the Symphony #6 by Anto- nin Dvorák, which is full of folk songs and dance rhythms from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Re- public), beautifully trans- formed for a symphony or- chestra. Those who attend each symphony concert are in- vited to complete a survey which is part of the pro- cess of selecting a direc- tor. The director is also a faculty member at CSU, Chico. The Redding concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. in the Cascade Theatre. Tick- ets are available at www. cascadetheatre.org or 243- 8877. Tickets for the Chico concert, at 2 p.m. in Lax- son Auditorium, are avail- able at chicostatetickets. com or by calling 898- 6333. In both Chico and Red- ding, the conductor will give a free pre-concert talk one hour before each per- formance. The symphony's web- site, northstatesymphony. org, has more information. NORTH STATE Symphony to explore Europe, future California State Univer- sity, Chico's Department of Music and Theatre pres- ents its fall semester thank you concert, "A Serenade or Two," at 7:30 p.m. Wednes- day, Nov. 19 in Harlen Ad- ams Theatre. "A Serenade or Two" features the Concert Band and Jazz II ensembles and is free and open to the pub- lic. "The concert is our thank you to our patrons for sup- porting our music and the- atre events during the se- mester," said Royce Tevis, director of bands at Chico State. "It is also an opportunity for our students to show what they have learned during the semester." Music performed will in- clude everything from over- tures and marches to big band, swing and fusion. A special feature of the con- cert will be a medley of James Bond movie tunes performed by the Concert Band. For more information, call Tevis at 898-5582. CHICO STATE Student musicians to give free concert COURTESYPHOTO CSU Chico Concert Band Will Durst By Sharon Martin smartin@chicoer.com @SharonBMartin on Twitter It only took one tryout at Northern Illinois Uni- versity for Joel Murray to abandon his dream of one day becoming a college football star. "On the way back to my car, I picked up a flier for two plays and was actu- ally cast in one of them," he said. "And then I gave up football." Murray, now a comedian and actor, was surrounded by funny folks growing up. His brother Bill starred in the movie Caddyshack and his brother Brian wrote the film. Murray was even in discussion to play the character Spaulding in the film, but had other as- pirations. "I told them 'I don't want to be a clown actor like you guys, I want to play college football,'" Murray said. "Sure enough, I gave that up about nine months later." Growing up in a funny household, it was no sur- prise his career path turned towards acting and comedy. When Murray was about 6-years-old, his brother Bill would act out a bad Santa Claus routine where he'd sit Murray on his lap, ask him what he wanted for Christmas, then in- stead suggest a "trap door" leading him to open his legs and let Murray fall to the ground. "It was a funny group of nine kids," Murray said. "It was definitely fun." The Chicago native eventually joined the Im- prov Olympic, an im- prov theater in Chicago, in 1984. After he was in- vited to a Christmas party for improv theater Sec- ond City Comedy in Chi- cago, he knew he wanted to work in comedy as a ca- reer. "Everybody got a gift, and I just said 'Wow, this is such a wonderful fam- ily,'" Murray said. "I knew I wanted to be a part of this." Now, Murray has played a variety of roles, from voicing Don Carlton in Monsters University to "Fitz" in the sitcom Still Standing. His favorite role was playing Pete Cavana- ugh on the sitcom Dharma & Greg. "Everybody on that show was pretty happy to just be working, especially the older actors," he said. "There was nobody stuck in their trailer." Another role Murray en- joyed playing was Freddy Rumsen on the show Mad Men. "You got to be a part of television history," Mur- ray said. "Those people would sit around play board games and games on their phones until two in the morning and sit around and drink wine and laugh, and Jon Hamm is one of the nicest guys to be around." For the past two years, Murray has been a part of the cast of Whose Live Anyway?, a 90-minute show of improvised com- edy that's based on the show Whose Line is it Any- way? Murray, along with Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops and Jeff B. Davis, will be making a stop 7:30 p.m. today in Chico at La xson Auditorium, presented by Chico Per- formances. CHICO PERFORMANCES Improv comedy set to bring laughs to Laxson When: 7:30p.m. today Where: Laxson Auditorium Cost: $48premium/ $40 adult/ $38senior/ $30 youth/ $10Chico State Students. Tickets can be purchased at the university box office or online at chico- performances.com. WHOSELIVEANYWAY? GoldExchange The 3 rd Annual Christmas for A Cause Nov. 15 th -Dec. 13 th 423WalnutSt.,RedBluff 528-8000 www.ChristmasForACause TehamaCounty.com *ForDetailsand *Wish list* BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION Visit 39 th Annual Fri.,Dec.5 th , 2014 9AM to 8PM Sat., Dec. 6 th , 2014 10AM to 3PM 25076SycamoreAvenue, behind La Corona, Los Molinos TEAANDBOUTIQUE 365S.MainSt. Red Bluff www.lariatbowl.com 527-2720 Family Fun Day November15 th 12:00-1:30 $7.50/person Callfordetailsonboth. A+E » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, November 13, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A5