Las Vegas Strip holiday performance 1st for Oscar-winning singer

Jennifer Hudson has sung in Las Vegas before, but you might have missed it. The celebrated vocalist headlined the Post-Graduation Family Reunion Las Vegas Strip Tour.

“I was there after I graduated from high school, long before the world knew me, and it was a family reunion,” Hudson recalls. “We would have a family reunion every year in Las Vegas. We were on the Strip, and someone asked where we were from, and I said, ‘We are from across the street!’”

Hudson then gesturing toward The Venetian, less than a year after the resort opened.

“Then I was singing, ‘My name is Jennifer Hudson!’” Hudson says. “We have that on video, somewhere. That was my first visit to Vegas.”

Hudson is performing in a more formal, produced capacity at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at BleauLive Theater at Fontainebleau. The shows celebrate Hudson’s first holiday-themed album, “The Gift Of Love,”as she toasts such classics as “O Holy Night,” “Winter Wonderland” and “Auld Lang Syne” alongside original numbers.

Though she could have issued a hit holiday album years ago, Hudson is selective in what she sings. Her family unit on her self-named talk show helped instill a concept for this year’s album.

“I’ve always been a holiday fanatic, and I feel like one of the things that’s kept me from it is I could never narrow down the songs,” Hudson says. “But what encouraged me was having the entity of ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show,’ which is like an extended family, and I wanted to give my gift of love, my gift of music, to them and everyone from under my Christmas tree.”

Hudson is of course an “American Idol” alum, finishing a remarkably low seventh in 2004, the season won by Fantasia Barrino. But Hudson became famous across the country, and is today the rare EGOT — Emmy- Grammy- Oscar- and Tony -award winner — the youngest woman to win the award.

Hudson’s EGOT journey began with by winning Academy Award for her performance as Effie White in “Dreamgirls.” She won Grammys in 2009 for her album “Jennifer Hudson,” and in 2017 for the Broadway revival cast album of “The Color Purple,” and a Daytime Emmy Award in 2021 for Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program for “Baby Yaga.”

Hudson has starred in a pair of prominent Las Vegas galas. She performed at “The Event,” for the Shaquille O’Neal Foundation, in October 2023. She also helped save the night at the 2017 Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at MGM Grand Garden, taking a late call after Gwen Stefani was forced from the event by a ruptured ear drum.

Hudson says an extended run on the Strip “is something on my list of things I want to do,” but focused on her performances at Fontainebleau.

“You know, I love to see people come together, through positivity,” Hudson says. “I want to strike a chord of unity, and the only way I know how to do that is through music.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.