HPPR Christmas Programming

Alt.Latino continues its homegrown tradition of celebrating the holidays in song with a special show featuring songwriter/performer Gaby Moreno. Vocalist Moreno brings a Muscle Shoals-tinged holiday celebration to this year's Festivo Alt.Latino. Classics from the U.S. and Latin America get a shimmering bluesy, R&B treatment from Moreno and her four-piece band in a performance recorded live in front of a studio audience at KUTX in Austin, Texas. There is plenty of joy and holiday spirit in both English and Spanish that will add a new dimension to the idea of holiday music.

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.

Artistic director Matthew Culloton of The Singers and host Scott Blankenship present an hour of holiday music for everybody. The program includes holiday favorites from The Singers' repertoire mixed together with music from the Great American Songbook as well, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald. Plus Steve Heitzig's "Little Tree" and the music of modern choral ensembles like Pentatonix and The King Singers.

Tune in on Wednesday 12/25 at 11 am CT.

Playlist

An updated version of a public radio tradition hosted by NPR's Susan Stamberg. Master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of Dickens' holiday classic, with a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. Also featuring Mimi Kennedy.

Click here for more information or to hear or re-hear the program on-line.

Narrative in words and music telling the story of the spontaneous truce arranged among soldiers along the Western Front, Christmas, 1914. Features over two dozen voices reading from letters and diaries of those who were there. Much of the music also drawn from the period, including those they sang for each other and with each other.

A Holiday for Swinging celebrates Christmas with classic and current holiday jazz recordings along with a touch of blues, and a few other surprises.
Dan Polletta, longtime jazz programmer for 90.3 WCPN-Cleveland/ideastream is your host for this fun and moving trip through a musical winter wonderland which includes selections from Duke Ellington, Ken Peplowski, Marian McPartland, Eric Reed, Bill Cunliffe, Ella Ftizgerald and more. Dan curated WCPN/ ideastream's "Swingin' Sounds of the Season" a 24 hour a day holiday music stream for the web from 2012-1019.

Night Lights' annual holiday tribute celebrates the season with plenty of cool-Yule jazz, including Shorty Rogers' take on "The Nutcracker," pianist Bill Evans having some vocal fun with "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (as well as the backstory on how the song came to be written), guitarist Emily Remler offering up a luminous version of "Snowfall," and poet Sascha Feinstein reading his poem about the legendary Miles Davis-Thelonious Monk Christmas Eve 1954 recording session. Lighthearted and poignant, perfect for December.

A Cowboy Christmas celebrates 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. This program features poets Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, and Native American singer and comedian Vincent Craig.

SOUL CHRISTMAS! Here are some of the greatest Soul and R&B holiday winter classics ever recorded. Today on this show you will hear Christmas tunes from JAMES BROWN, OTIS REDDING, THE OJAY’S, DONNIE HATTHAWAY,THE JACKSON FIVE, STEVIE WONDER, BOOKER T & THE MG’S, plus others. Have a very merry SOUL CHRISTMAS today on Soul Roots.

The Rochester, NY chamber choir Madrigalia, and their Artistic Director Cary Ratcliff return to public radio for Christmas with Madrigalia 2020, a holiday concert that celebrates the excitement and joy of the holiday season.

A service in song and word that has become one of the nation's most cherished holiday celebrations. Tickets to the event, which takes place at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, are always gone months in advance. The festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, as well as orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians in five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra.

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.

A Chanticleer Christmas is American Public Media's one-hour celebration of the season as told 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.

Click here for more information or to hear or re-hear the program on-line.

Celebrate the Return of the Sun -- and the Warming of the Earth with an exuberant Feast of Sound captured live in the majestic Cathedral of St. John the Divine. WNYC's John Schaefer hosts this all new performance, featuring the Paul Winter Consort with Paul McCandless, gospel singer Theresa Thomason, Danny Rivera -- the "National Voice of Puerto Rico”, and Abdel Salaam's Forces of Nature percussion and dance ensemble.

Grammy-nominated True Concord Voices & Orchestra presents their holiday special, “Sing We Now of Christmas.” Independently produced by Classical Arizona PBS, the hour-long program features fresh arrangements of traditional favorites that your listeners will thank you for many times over this holiday season.

Join Lynne Warfel, host of APM’s Saturday Cinema and Flicks in Five, for a festive one-hour musical retrospective of some of Hollywood's most cherished films inspired by Dickens’ classic character, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Join host Elena See as she plays a a mix of wintry and nostalgic classical pieces designed to accompany listeners as they enjoy cozy wintertime activities.

All Is Bright offers an hour of gorgeous, contemplative choral music that tells the traditional Christmas story with songs about angels, the star and the manger scene. Featured artists include Cantus, Chanticleer, Cambridge Singers, Bryn Terfel, Emma Kirkby, Jessye Norman and a variety of choirs. Lynne Warfel hosts.

For nearly 10 years, NPR Music has recorded concerts from behind Bob Boilen's desk. During the holidays, the desk gets a little more festive, thanks to a snow machine, paper snowflakes and Stephen Thompson's hand-drawn Christmas tree. (It's labeled "tree.") Whether they perform original songs or new takes on holiday staples, these artists bring big sounds to the Tiny Desk.

In this holiday special, join NPR Music's Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson as they look back on these and other performances from years past.

Hosted by multiple Grammy Award-winning musician Christian McBride, Jazz Night in America presents content from across the nation.

Explore a glimpse of this vast (420 compositions) repertoire of poetry, songs, stories, and recitations about the “Blessed Virgin Mary” in this holiday special.  The immense collection of Marian songs and poetry came from the Court of King Alfonso X (1252-1284) of Castile-Leon (now Spain). 

Join us for A Baroque Christmas in the New World, an hour-long program of early music, celebrating the holiday season with festive music from 17th- and 18th-century Mexico, Peru and Bolivia performed by the musicians of the Historical Performance Institute at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University. 

The best way to welcome Christmas is Welcome Christmas!, the VocalEssence holiday concert from American Public Media.

The perennial Christmas favorite from VocalEssence, one of the world's premiere choral groups, led by Philip Brunelle. Join host John Birge for an hour of traditional carols and new discoveries.

The sounds of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir floated in to many homes during the holidays in the '60s & '70s on Goodyear and Firestone albums, bringing lush renditions of favorite Christmas carols. Those warm memories and feelings come right back again in this holiday special. The choir continues its tradition of great artistry with touching arrangements of familiar carols, and surprises with lesser-known melodies that are fast becoming the new classics.

In an Echoes Christmas, we create a soundscape for winding down after all the Christmas celebrations have ebbed. It's a soundscape of carols that depart from the shopping mall repetition to send you into that long winter's night.

Frank Dominguez hosts a special holiday edition of the national bi-lingual program that features music by Spanish and Latin American composers and performers presented in English and in Spanish. This edition features traditional Spanish language villancicos from 18th century Cuba, 19th century Uruguay, and 17th century Ecuador. You'll also hear sacred works by the Renaissance Spanish composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, the 20th century Spaniard Joaquin Rodrigo, and the Argentine composer Ariel Ramirez.

All Songs Considered is NPR's guide to discovering new music below the radar. Every week, host Bob Boilen and producer Robin Hilton go through hundreds of new cds to find sneak previews of music that's worth getting excited about, whether it's the latest Swedish pop band, a hip hop artist going ambient, or a singer-songwriter with a twisted new take on love. Sometimes, artists or critics stop by All Songs Considered with their top picks. It's the perfect show for listeners who want to stay current, but don't have the time. 

An NPR tradition every New Year's Eve since the 1970s, Toast of the Nation is the perfect audio complement for the occasion. It's jazz that you can party to, all night long with countdowns to midnight in all four continental time zones. Spirited, improvised, grooving and swinging, each segment is a stop in a sequence of celebrations, contributing something new to the musical feast. 7 hours of music will start at 9pm CST and continue throughout the night until 4am.  Hear the energy infused live concert recordings of Wynton Marsalis, Snarky Puppy, Wycliffe Gordon, and more.  Hosted by Rhonda Hamilton.

The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice 2019 is a two-hour musical celebration of the winter holidays – Christmas, the Solstice, New Year's, and Twelfth Night – featuring traditional carols, anthems, hymns, motets, wassails, spirituals, children's game-songs, and folk dance tunes excerpted from live Christmas Revels productions presented around the country. 
Tune in on Saturday 12/21 at 10 pm CT.