No Name Pops takes over the Pops Christmas franchise and adds some Jason Kelce on the side

Christmas is all about memories, and one of my favorite musical ones is walking into one of Peter Nero’s annual holiday shows with the feeling that absolutely anything could happen and probably would. The late pianist and conductor was an unlikely musical thinker, taking raw material from anywhere — classical, jazz, disco, K-pop — and spinning it into artistic gold.

Nero is at least partly the musical godfather of “A Very Philly Christmas,” which opened its nine-concert run Friday night in Verizon Hall. The circumstances are all different now, but some elements of the show remain familiar. The musicians on stage, the No Name Pops, were largely the same as ones who played in the Philly Pops, the group that Nero led for decades and which now lies in tatters. And this new iteration of a pops Christmas experience retains at least some of the variety show aspect that Nero owned. It’s not every day that you get a kickline of two singers and eight dancing Santas.

The “Very Philly Christmas” concept, something that plays to our sense of proud provincial quirkiness, is a strong one. But in its programming choices, this show is more a “Somewhat Philly Christmas.” Most of the tunes at these concerts led by conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez are traditional Christmas carols and standards in arrangements and orchestrations ranging from interesting to bland. Thank goodness for the No Name Pops Choir and Gospel Choir of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, which kicked up the program’s verve several notches.

There’s a Broadway feel to much of the music. Soprano Kristina Nicole Miller had a big sound but was at her best in the intimacy of “Who Would Imagine a King.” Tenor Christian Dante White did an admirable job in the program’s standout moment, when the mere mention of a new songwriter’s name moved the audience response from polite to a roar.

No wonder. You don’t get much more Philly than Jason Kelce, whose “Santa’s Night” got an orchestral version world premiere. A bit of cultural translation for non-sports fans. “Santa’s Night” is a single by Kelce, a center for the Eagles, from A Philly Special Christmas Special, an album featuring Kelce and fellow Eagles Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson. Is it the next great American Christmas song? Probably not. It’s a ballad in three-quarter time with a limited amount of harmonic variety, though White gave the lyric shape and meaning. Clever of Lopez-Yañez, who did the orchestration, to assign a quick spotlight moment to the sax near the end — an ode to Kelce, who plays the sax.

Lopez-Yañez doubled as emcee for the evening, and he’s plenty likable. The newly named principal pops conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, who made a habit of sprinting into place on stage, deftly handled his most challenging assignment: conducting a girl and boy from the audience who were invited to come up and play sleigh bells and a percussion whip in Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride.

Little Chloe, 5½, missed her first whip entrance by a hair, but when Lopez-Yañez was able to calculate the timing of the cue she needed, she nailed it, and the audience cheered. It was no less cute when, later in the piece, her attention strayed and she began looking at things other than the performance at hand. It was a totally lovely and unrehearsed moment, a snapshot of childhood at holiday time that may have been the evening’s best and most authentic touch.

“A Very Philly Christmas” continues through Dec. 23 at Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets are $29-$109, kimmelculturalcampus.org or 215-893-1999.