Full disclosure: I spent two years working for Pink Martini circa Hang on Little Tomato. The end of my first year was New Year’s Eve 2005 when NPR’s Toast of the Nation broadcast the band's performance at the Schnitz for all the world to hear. It was also the year that we filmed the performance to ultimately become the band’s live DVD. Which is to say, there were satellite trucks and national radio producers and fancy lighting designers and cameras on cranes and enough electrical cords to stretch to the tip of Mt. Hood and back.

It was one of the most exciting nights of my life, knowing that when the clock struck 12 and the band and the audience sang Auld Lang Syne and confetti dropped from the ceiling, people all across the country were singing along.

I’m of the camp that New Year’s Eves are almost without exception anti-climatic. You get all dressed up and spend a lot of money to go somewhere and do something that ultimately would be half the price or less any other night of the year, and you expect something remarkable to happen—a chronologically predetermined, ineffable blast of unadulterated, full force life that will neatly wrap up the prior year and kick off the next.

But not that New Year’s. That was the definition of climactic. Yes, Pink Martini’s romanticization of eras gone by and parade of special guests can sometimes descend into the schmaltzy. But on New Year’s Eve, when people young and old come together sporting their fanciest duds in a beautiful concert hall to sing with each other—then it hits just the right note.

Because we want you to have that experience, too, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to Pink Martini’s New Year’s Eve performances. There are two shows: 7 and 10:30. The winner gets to pick.

This contest is now closed.

Further show and tickets info is here. The shows are quick on their way to selling out.