Holiday Specials 2012
A Chanukah Musical Celebration
December 10 at 3 p.m.
The spirit of Chanukah, a holiday joyous at freedom’s triumph and spiritual re-dedication, is richly reflected in the folk melodies and songs from countries across the globe where Jews have lived and worshipped for centuries.
Hanukkah Lights
December 11 at Noon
A perennial NPR favorite, Hanukkah Lights features Hanukkah stories and memoirs written by acclaimed authors expressly for the show, as read by NPR’s Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz.
Jews & American Pop: A Tin Pan Alley Parade
December 12 at Noon
In recognition of Hanukkah, this show is dedicated to the Jews who catapulted popular music to stage and radio from the 1900s to the early 1930s. They are some of the best-known composers and it is unimaginable how different American popular music would be without their influence.
Holiday Readings & Remembrances
Weekdays - December 3-31 at 9:37 a.m.
Once again this year Public Radio 90 listeners share their favorite and most heartwarming holiday memories and stories. Gather around the fire and drift into new stories, old favorites and even a little bit of song.
Tinsel Tales
December 18 at Noon
December 27 at 10 a.m.
This program features stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris, Bailey White, John Henry Faulk, and other NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
Tinsel Tales 2
December 19 at Noon
December 27 at 11 a.m.
NPR fills millions of homes each holiday with humor, warmth, and a host of festive voices. Continuing with the tradition of the first Tinsel Tales program, this is another collection of the best and most requested holiday stories. Joy, hope, and childhood memories overflow as NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary.
Ratatat Man, A Christmas Tale
December 21 at 3 p.m.
The “Little Drummer Boy” comes of age in this contemporary radio drama by producer Charles Baglan.
A Crosby Christmas
December 16 at 1 p.m.
Culled from rare radio and television Christmas broadcasts starring ‘The Voice of Christmas...’ Bing Crosby, this special program features Bing joined in duets by friends like Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Ella Fitzgerald... even David Bowie!
A Celtic Christmas
December 16 at 10 p.m.
Tomáseen Foley’s special recreates the joy and innocence of a night before Christmas in a farmhouse in the west of Ireland, when the neighbors gather around the fire to grace the long wintry night with the laughter of their stories, the joy of their music, and dances they always said they were much too old for. Features music from guitarist William Coulter, fiddler Deby Benton Grojean, and piper Todd Denman, and songs from Moira Smiley.
A Doo Wop Christmas
Decembr 19 at 3 p.m.
Featuring classic holiday tunes from the Drifters, the Platters, Chuck Berry, Charles Brown, the Cadillacs, Frankie Lymon, and much, much, more.
A Paul Winter Solstice
December 21 at 10 p.m.
Once again on the darkest night of the year, NPR Music presents the illuminating tradition from New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine: the 32nd annual Paul Winter Solstice Celebration, featuring gospel singer Theresa Thomason, Mbira Master Chris Berry and The Paul Winter Consort with Paul McCandless, Eugene Friesen, Paul Sullivan, Eliot Wadopian, Jamey Haddad, Tim Brumfield and the glorious Cathedral Pipe Organ.
A 40s Radio Christmas
December 23 at 1 p.m.
Christmas programs on the radio in the 1940s ranged from variety shows, to dramas, to comedies... all of them, containing a generous portion of music, from swing to, sentimental, to religious. This was the last decade before the advent of television, and many radio performers of the 40s became household names to early television viewers.
A Cowboy Christmas
December 23 at 10 p.m.
Celebrate the holiday with memories, music, and poetry of people who live and work in the isolation of America’s outback. Some of the stories and songs are family traditions passed down through the generations while others are new works inspired by Christmas on the lonely range. Features poets Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, and Native American singer and comedian Vincent Craig.
All Songs Considered for the Holidays
December 25 at 4 p.m.
It’s the fourth edition of the not so new, wonky holiday tradition from NPR Music. Host Bob Boilen and friends trade holiday cheer and snarky barbs while bringing you the best holiday songs from new and emerging breakout bands. This show is filled with fun and fresh renditions of great holiday music.
Juke in the Back: Christmas Leftovers & New Year’s Resolutions
December 26 at 3 p.m.
Matt The Cat has dug up some R&B Christmas treasures and added a few tunes about New Years for this year’s Juke in the Back R&B Christmas Special. The holiday juke is jumpin’ with cool tunes by Big John Greer, Champion Jack Dupree, Lowell Fulson, The Moonglows, Marvin & Johnny and more. The range of topics is wide, from dancing Santas to lonely Christmases, to making up with your baby on New Year’s Eve.
A Very Hipster Christmas
December 28 at 3 p.m.
Want an opinion? Look no further than your favorite hipster. And, it’s only natural that this cooler-than-thou mindset would echo the mantra big time when it comes to the most colorful, most commercial, most dominating force of the winter holidays. A Very Hipster Christmas is one sick hour of the post shoegaze modern holiday genre tunes, guaranteed to brighten your season and put you a few 180 gram vinyl tracks ahead of the rest.
Superiorland Concerts: Marquette Symphony Holiday Concert
December 18 at 1 p.m.
December 27 at 8 p.m.
The Marquette Symphony Orchestra presents your favorite holiday music with a “Mannheim Steamroller” flair in their 2012 holiday concert at Marquette’s Kaufman Auditorium.
A Chanticleer Christmas
December 20 at 10 a.m.
December 31 at 11 a.m.
Celebrates of the season through the glorious voices of Chanticleer, the 12-voice San Francisco-based men’s choir. The program spans the globe and the centuries from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic and contemporary carols.
A Choral Christmas with Stile Antico
December 20 at 11 a.m.
December 25 at 9 a.m.
Stile Antico, the award-winning choir from London, pays a visit to St. Paul’s Church on Harvard Square for a concert of radiant sacred music for the Christmas season by the most acclaimed composers of the renaissance. Hear the group’s luminous blend of voices sing the intricately woven music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.
Hope College Vespers
December 21 at 10 a.m.
Christmas Vespers has been a Hope College tradition for more than 60 years. Participating groups include Hope’s Chapel Choir, College Chorus, and Symphonette, as well as organists, the flute choir and brass ensemble. Thousands of members of the Holland and Hope communities gather for the services each year.
Superiorland Concerts: Carols in the Cathedral 2012
December 21 at 8 p.m.
December 25 at 1 p.m.
The Marquette Choral Society under the direction of Floyd Slotterback, perform new and traditional arrangements of holiday choral music at Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Marquette.
Christmas Vespers with Apollo’s Fire
December 19 at 10 a.m.
Apollo’s Fire gives a rousing performance of music that the early 17th century German composer Michael Praetorius might have used at Lutheran services for Advent and Christmas Day Vespers. The concert features a “big band” of strings, winds, children’s and adult’s voices, and period brass including sackbuts, trumpets, and cornetti.
Welcome Christmas
December 25 at 6 a.m.
Long a favorite from their appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, VocalEssence rings in the season with an all-new Welcome Christmas! This year’s program, hosted by John Birge, puts the focus on old French carols, alongside two world premieres in the annual VocalEssence/American Composers Forum Christmas Carol Contest.
Echoes of Christmas
December 25 at 7 a.m.
December 31 at 10 a.m.
The Dale Warland Singers provided magical performances to listeners across the country for over 30 years and were acclaimed as America’s premiere choir. Their signature holiday concert – beloved by public radio listeners nationwide – was the annual Echoes of Christmas program. Drawing upon the archive of their live performances, Dale Warland and host Brian Newhouse create a very special Christmas musical treat.
Christmas with the Morehouse & Spelman Glee Clubs
December 25 at 8 a.m.
December 28 at 11 a.m.
One of the great holiday traditions in America; the choirs of Morehouse and Spelman Colleges – two of the most prestigious historically black institutions in the nation – get together to present a spine-tingling concert program. This encore presentation features the best works of the last several years. It’s a joyous celebration of the schools’ tradition of singing excellence, with their trademark mixture of spirituals and carols. Korva Coleman hosts.
The Carol Connection
December 26 at Noon
Join host Stephen Peithman for an exploration of classical works that have inspired carols, and carols that have found their way into works by Bizet, Respighi, Liszt, Schoenberg and many others.
Carols the World ’Round
December 30 at 9 p.m.
A celebration of the music and traditions that make up the Christmas season from the plains of Africa to the hills of Appalachia and beyond.
A Festival of Nine Lesson and Carols
December 24 at 10 a.m.
Hosted by Michael Barone, this is a live stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King’s College in Cambridge, England. The 30-voice King’s College Choir performs the legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music.
Christmas with Madrigalia: A Time to Rejoice
December 25 at 10 a.m.
December 27 at Noon
This program of holiday cheer fills the season with joy, and features many Madrigalia favorites along with some new seasonal tunes to brighten the darkest of winter’s days. The program features settings of familiar tunes and texts by some of today’s most brilliant young composers along with some less familiar, yet captivating melodies.
A Rochester Festival of Lessons & Carols
December 25 at 11 a.m.
One of the most beloved traditions of the holiday season is the Festival of Lessons and Carols, made famous at King’s College in Cambridge, England. The Festival tells the Christmas story in words and music, and is heard all over the world in many languages and many variations. This Christmas you’ll be treated to an American variation recorded at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York under the direction of organist/choirmaster Peter DuBois.
A Christmas Carol
December 25 at Noon
Host Janean Jorgensen from the series Broadway Matinee: Songs from the Stage & Screen presents songs from musical adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
St Olaf Christmas
December 25 at 8 p.m.
December 26 at 10 a.m.
January 1 at 1 p.m.
A service in song and word that has become one of the nation’s most cherished holiday celebrations. The St Olaf Christmas festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians who are members of five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra.
A New Orleans Christmas
December 18 at 3 p.m.
Christmas in New Orleans is special; people flock to the city for the beauty, the history, the food and the music. You don’t have to come here to experience the music; we have brought it to you. This program features wonderful Christmas classics from Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, Dr. John, Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Harry Connick, Jr., Bradford Marsalis, Allen Toussaint, Kermit Ruffins, Fats Domino and others.
Slavic Wonders: Christmas with the Rose Ensemble
December 20 at Noon
December 28 at 10 a.m.
The Rose Ensemble of Minnesota has put together a stunning celebration of the season featuring an engaging and curious mixture of chant, carols, and glorious polyphony from the libraries and monasteries of Krakow, Prague, and Moscow.
Full-Time Blues Radio: Christmas Blues
December 22 at 11 p.m.
This special features holiday Blues tunes to make your yuletide a little brighter. It’s the best in new and independent Christmas Blues with original songs and new takes on Christmas classics.
Jazz Piano Christmas XXIII
December 23 at 3 p.m.
December 27 at 3 p.m.
NPR Music brings you another great concert from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. NEA Jazz Master Ellis Marsalis, Jason Moran, Geri Allen, and Taylor Eigsti, and other artists perform their favorite holiday songs.
Soul Christmas!
December 24 at 3 p.m.
Featuring some of the greatest Soul and R&B holiday winter classics ever recorded. You’ll be treated to Christmas tunes from James Brown, Otis Redding, The Ojays, Donnie Hatthaway,The Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder, Booker T & The MGs, plus others.
A Child is Born: A Spiritual Christmas with Geri Allen
December 25 at 3 p.m.
Jim Luce hosts this spiritual celebration of Christmas with jazz pianist Geri Allen and her new recording, A Child is Born, featuring Geri on the Fazioli Piano. Special appearances by Dr. Dwight Andrews, composer, musician, educator, and minister, artist Kabuya Pamela Bowens, creator of the “Black Madonna” and others.
A Jazz Christmas
December 25 at 10 p.m.
A program of Christmas music as played in the jazz tradition by your favorite jazz artists (Dexter Gordon, Roy Hargrove, Oscar Peterson, Bobby Watson etc.) with Christmas quips and quotes in between. Hosted by Billy Foster and Renee Miles-Foster.
The Capitol Steps New Year’s Special
December 31 at 3 p.m. & 8 p.m.
January 1 at 10 a.m.
Help us roast 2012 to a crisp with The Capitol Steps annual year-in-review awards. This year will feature all new awards, such as: “Best Use of $3 billion Dollars to Run for President,” “Worst Place in Public to Admit You Had a Binder Full of Women,” “Most Prostitutes to Ever Fit into the Secret Service’s Hotel,” and “Worst Hair Cut Ever to Demand to See Anyone’s Birth Certificate, Much Less the President’s.” If there is anything Congress can agree on, it is The Capitol Steps’ New Year’s special will have you laughing harder than Joe Biden at a Vice Presidential debate. So laugh away at 2012, because unlike any Presidential election, laughter is free.
Toast of the Nation 2012-13
December 31 at 9 p.m.
It’s jazz that you can party to, all night from coast to coast, with countdowns to midnight in all four continental time zones. Wynton Marsalis headlines at 11pm with The Louis Armstrong Continuum.
New Year’s Day from Vienna
January 1 at 11 a.m. & 8 p.m.
The Vienna Philharmonic presents its ever popular annual New Year’s Day concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. You’ll hear your favorite waltzes, polkas and more – a festive way to start off the New Year.