Photograph courtesy Joshua Steele
Local a cappella group NO PROMISES is gearing up for another year of its annual Christmas tour. Founded in 2015, the eight-member, all-vocal band is gearing up to celebrate its 10th anniversary during “Christmas with NO PROMISES.”
NO PROMISES’s Christmas tour is one of its most famous yearly events, and will include performances of holiday favorite songs by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (Charlie Brown), Pentatonix, Donny Hathaway, and more in addition to classic non-holiday tunes.
“Christmas with NO PROMISES” kicks off with two free, 60-minute programs, at the St. Columban Parish in Loveland on December 11 and the Community of the Good Shepherd in Montgomery on December 18. The tour ends with NO PROMISES’s final show at The Carnegie in Covington on December 20, which includes a full-length program with two sets. Tickets are $26.
NO PROMISES has accomplished a lot over the last decade. The group won CityBeat Cincinnati’s “Best of Cincinnati” in 2017 and 2022, performed the national anthem at the Great American Ballpark in 2024 and 2025, and was one of 25 ensembles to celebrate the 150th anniversary of The May Festival with the performance of a new composition in 2023. Its 10th anniversary season kicked off in September with a concert with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra at the 20th Century Theater in Oakley.
NO PROMISES is one of the most diverse a cappella groups in the state, featuring singers with various ranges, job titles, and levels of involvement working in the music industry; Joey Pace is director of choirs at St. Xavier High School. Kaeden Kass is a mental health therapist. David Baum performed on Broadway in Mary Poppins and A Chorus Line before becoming a psychologist.
Outside of the holidays, NO PROMISES has performed and collaborated with Cincinnati artists like Gem City Chorus, the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers, and soft rock group Three Bald Guys. NO PROMISES also records music and has three released albums, including a full Christmas album. The songs the group performs range from Motown hits to the Eagles and even some work of late ’90s boybands.
“Who goes to see a bunch of men sing, and they’re singing Amy Winehouse?” says longtime NO PROMISES member Nat Comisar, who daylights as executive vice president of sales at Sibcy Cline Realtors and helped run his family’s Maisonette restaurant back in the day. Comisar became interested in singing when he was growing up thanks to his mother and his grandfather, and joined the group in 2017 after watching a video of a NO PROMISES performance of “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys. Comisar, a bass vocalist, enjoys the range that they are able to execute throughout these performances.
Buck Hinman, conversely, is celebrating his first year as a full member with NO PROMISES. Last year, Hinman—an executive producer at WLWT—was a guest singer for three of the group’s songs. “As I’ve solidified with the group I know, I feel more comfortable and excited about what we are able to achieve musically,” Hinman said.
Of the vocal band’s Christmas tour, co-founder Joshua Steele, a tenor, says they’re proud of the connection they’ve made with Greater Cincinnati families year after year. “We hear all the time from our patrons saying this has become a tradition for them,” he says. “They bring their partners and they bring their kids and they look forward to it every year. And that’s really special to us.”
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