Holiday Specials 2011

Monday, December 19th

9PM Echoes of Christmas
Hosted by: Brian Newhouse

Moving selections of choral classics celebrating Christmas. 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.

10PM A Chanticleer Christmas

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.

Tuesday, December 20th

9PM Hanukkah Lights
Hosted by: Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz

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.

10PM Channukah in Story and Song
Hosted by: Leonard Nimoy

A returning one-hour Chanukah favorite, a celebration by The Western Wind performing Ladino songs of Spanish Jews, Yiddish melodies of Eastern Europe and modern Israeli tunes.

Wednesday, December 21th

9PM St. Olaf Christmas Festival

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, and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians who are members of five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra.

Thursday, December 22nd

9PM Paul Winter Solstice Concert

The towering walls of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine reverberate with sounds of celebration in this NPR holiday tradition. Paul Winter welcomes gospel singer Theresa Thomason, multi-instrumentalist/singer Arto Tunçboyaciyan, double reed wizard Paul McCandless, and the Paul Winter Consort in live performances from their recent Grammy-winning album MIHO and their timeless solstice songs.

Friday, December 23rd

9PM Christmas with Moehouse Spelman Glee Clubs
Hosted by: Korva Coleman

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.

10PM Jazz at Lincloln Center Gospel Holiday Special

This holiday season, Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio brings the spirit of the season from Rose Hall with Kim Burrell’s Jazz Gospel Holiday Special. Vocalist Kim Burrell fills the Allen Room with the sounds of holiday spirit. Her festive ensemble includes Leon Lacy & Orchestra, Chris “Butch” Woodie, True Destiny – consisting of six background vocalists, a 13-piece orchestra and special guests. They offer soulful renditions of holiday classics including Silent Night, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and Little Drummer Boy.

Saturday, December 24th

9AM A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (KBIA 2)
Hosted by: Michael Barone

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.

7PM A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
Hosted by: Michael Barone

9PM Welcome Christmas
Hosted by:John Birge

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

Long a favorite from their appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, VocalEssence rings in the season with an all-new Welcome Christmas! It's an hour of joyful holiday music featuring the Minneapolis-based chorus, VocalEssence, and hosted for the thirteenth year by APM's John Birge.

This year's VocalEssence Welcome Christmas! concert celebrates the holidays with the warmth of traditional carols and the exhilaration of new songs for the season. The concert features a garland of carols from Sweden, and the world premiere of this year's Welcome Christmas! Carol Contest-winning carols, composed for chorus and bell choir. Other carols were chosen by VocalEssence fans in an online audience favorite poll.

Gramophone magazine called VocalEssence "excellent and vibrant." NEA Chairman Dana Gioia named them "one of the irreplaceable music ensembles of our time." Join us in December for holiday classics new and old, when Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence Welcome Christmas! from American Public Media.

10PM A Jazz Piano Christmas
Hosted by: Felix Contreas

NPR Music brings you another great concert from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. NEA Jazz Master Barry Harris, Jason Moran, Eddie Palmieri, and up-and-comer Alfredo Rodriguez perform unique piano arrangements of their favorite holiday songs. Felix Contreas hosts.

Sunday, December 25th

5PM Tinsel Tales: NPR Christmas Favorites
Hosted by: Lynn Neary

This program features stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris, Bailey White, John Henry Faulk -- these and other NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary.

Featured Stories:
            ▪ Dad 'n' Sam (Jay Allison)
            ▪ Homeless Christmas (Lee Stringer)
            ▪ Christmas Morning, 1949 (Sylvia Seymour/Paul Auster)
            ▪ Low-Glamour Christmas Party (Bailey White)
            ▪ Doing it in the Closet (John McIlwraith)
            ▪ Christopher (Jay O'Callahan)
            ▪ Ode to Christmas (Chuck Kramer)
            ▪ Santaland Diaries (David Sedaris)
            ▪ Modern Day Joseph and Mary (Scott Simon)
            ▪ John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story (John Henry Faulk)

6PM Tinsel Tales 2
Hosted by: Lynn Neary

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.

7PM All Songs Considered for the Holidays
Hosted by: Lynn Neary

Third time's a charm, or maybe not. It's the third 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.

Friday, December 30th

9PM A Season’s Griot
Hosted by: Madafo Lloyd Wilson

One-hour Kwanzaa celebration, this year exploring the theme of peace through storytelling, music and voices from the streets, hosted by Madafo Lloyd Wilson.

Saturday, December 31st

10PM A Prairie Home Companion's Hawaiian New Year's Eve
Hosted by: Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor hosts a three hour broadcast from Hawaii, with our actors - Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Fred Newman - and Erica Rhodes; Rich Dworsky and the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band; Heather Masse, plus special guest performers, including slack key guitar and ukulele master, Led Kaapana. The broadcast will include - Guy Noir, Lives of the Cowboys and The News from Lake Wobegon.

"New Year's Eve is supposed to be lighthearted, optimistic, even joyful, and for our listeners across America and overseas, Hawaii represents those things. Yes, I suppose it is a cliché, but it's a happycliché, and it means that when we Statesiders get off a plane in Honolulu in that marvelous open-air airport and smell the sea breeze and the flowers, we feel an instant buoyancy. New Year's Eve tends to be a disappointing night, too much alcohol in crowded rooms with loud people. I can imagine someone sitting on a farm in Minnesota on December 31st and hearing soft-voiced Hawaiian singers and slack-key guitars and smelling the flowers and imagining beautiful people and deciding that 2012 may be a happy year after all."
-- Garrison Keillor

7PM Toast of the Nation
Hosted by: Rhonda Hamilton

Count down, sing along, and dance to live music all night long. Travel from coast to coast with four celebrations of midnight from time zone to time zone. It's the perfect holiday special for any New Year's event. Spirited, improvised, grooving, and swinging, with strings, horns, voices and drums, each segment is a stop in a sequence of parties, each one contributing something new to the musical feast. WBGO's Rhonda Hamilton anchors, with additional voices along the way.

Here's the latest rundown, with four midnights from coast to coast.

8pm ET: Live from Berklee Performance Space, Berklee College of Music, Boston, The Julian Lage Trio. NPR's A Blog Supreme names the guitarist's CD Gladwell -- only his second CD -- one of the "Best of 2011 So Far." Produced by WGBH Boston.
9pm ET: Highlights from the 2011 Newport Jazz Festival from NPR Music's full coverage of 20 sets over two fantastic days.
10pm ET: From the Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, A Tribute to Billy Taylor features Toshiko Akiyoshi, Geri Allen (Music Director), Cyrus Chestnut, Danilo Perez, Christian Sands, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, and vocalist Carmen Lundy.

Saturday, January 1st

1AM Toast of the Nation
Hosted by: Rhonda Hamilton

Toast of the Nation continues until 0459 and remember: you can repeat Toast of the Nation all day on New Year's Day. This special is co-produced by WBGO Jazz 88 in Newark and NPR Music.Program Rundown

2am ET: Live from The Blue Whale in Los Angeles, The Billy Childs Quartet. The winner of three Grammy Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship, just off a fall 2011 European tour with his Jazz/Chamber Ensemble, pianist Billy Childs rings in 2012 Pacific Time with a group of friends at the new live jazz and art space in downtown LA.
3:30am ET: From the Newport Jazz Festival, with his quartet and a 10-piece wind ensemble, alto saxophonist Miguel Zénon interprets music from the Puerto Rican songbook.
4am ET: Rollover of the trio of Julian Lage, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland from Berklee College of Music, Boston.
4:59am ET: End of this year's Toast of the Nation.

10AM New Year’s Day from Vienna (KBIA 2)

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. Presented by NPR Music and WGBH, Boston.

7PM New Year’s Day from Vienna