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Christmas Specials Round-up for Radio

A list of special programming on December 24 & 25 on WITF Radio

  • Fred Vigeant

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Friday December 24 – Christmas Eve

  • 9:00am – 10:00am – Ford’s Theater Presents: A Christmas Carol – Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. present a contemporary radio play of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, featuring acclaimed Washington actor Craig Wallace as Ebenezer Scrooge and public radio broadcaster Murray Horwitz as the narrator. This adaptation of the popular Ford’s Theatre holiday tradition captures the magic of Dickens’ Yuletide classic. Join the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future as they lead Ebenezer Scrooge on a journey of transformation and redemption.
  • 10:00am – 12:00pm – A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols – A live, world-wide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of Biblical readings, carols, and related seasonal Classical music. This special will be presented by one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue, the 500-year-old Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England.
  • 12:00pm – 1:00pm – Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square – 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.
  • 1:00pm – 2:00pm – The Canadian Brass: Christmas Time is Here – Hosted by WQXR’s Jeff Spurgeon, this program features arrangements of music by Vince Guaraldi and Luther Henderson as well as traditional favorites from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and more – timeless classics infused with jazz and lush harmonies
  • 2:00pm – 4:00pm – St. Olaf Christmas Festival – One of the nation’s most treasured holiday celebrations. Programming includes sacred choral and instrumental music from many traditions: beloved hymns, classical masterworks, folk songs from around the world, and African-American spirituals.
  • 4:00pm – 6:30pm – All Things Considered
  • 6:30pm – 7:00pm – The Christmas Skater – Sherwin Sleeves has retired to a small cabin on top of Marked Mountain in Lemon, New Hampshire. Every year at Christmas, he takes out his skates and goes for a ritual journey down a wilderness river…always hoping that a woman from his long ago past will finally agree to meet up with him at a certain special spot along the river.
  • 7:00pm – 8:00pm – Ford’s Theater Presents: A Christmas Carol – encore of 9:00am broadcast
  • 8:00pm – 10:00pm – A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols – encore of 10am broadcast
  • 10:00pm – 12:00am – Music of the Baroque: Brass and Choral Holiday Concert – Drawn from diverse cultures and various points in history, conductor William Jon Gray has assembled a program highlighting multifarious holiday traditions around a single unifying principle: whether in the twelfth or nineteenth centuries, in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, the Netherlands, or Spain, music gives voice to the spirit of the season.

 

Saturday December 25 – Christmas

  • 6:00am – 8:00am – St. Olaf Christmas Festival – encore of Friday broadcast
  • 8:00am – 10:00am – Weekend Edition
  • 10:00am – 11:00am – Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me
  • 11:00am – 12:00pm – Tinsel Tales 1 – Featuring 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.
  • 12:00pm – 1:00pm – Tinsel Tales 2 – 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.
  • 1:00pm – 2:00pm – Christmas with the Morehouse and Spelman Glee Clubs – 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.
  • 2:00pm – 3:00pm – A Chanticleer Christmas – This one-hour program of holiday favorites, new and old, will be presented live in concert by Chanticleer, the superb 12-man ensemble known as “an orchestra of voices.” Chanticleer is one of the premiere vocal ensembles in the nation. The ensemble has won two Grammys and is a member of the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
  • 3:00pm – 4:00pm – A Choral Christmas with Stile Antico – Celebrate Christmas with the sound of soaring voices. 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.
    4:00pm – 4:30pm – The Christmas Skater – encore of Friday broadcast
  • 4:30pm – 5:00pm – BBC News
  • 5:00pm – 6:00pm – All Things Considered
  • 6:00pm – 7:00pm – Mark O’Connor’s An Appalachian Christmas – Mark O’Connor, famous bluegrass fiddler and respected American composer, leads the O’Connor Band and special guest Nancy Ives, principal cellist of the Oregon Symphony, in An Appalachian Christmas . Hear holiday favorites including “The Cherry Tree Carol,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Carol of the Bells,” and others.
  • 7:00pm – 8:00pm – A Mountain Stage Holiday – An hour filled with beautiful music to mark the season. The show features special guests Holly Cole, Joan Baez, Bruce Cockburn, Loudon Wainwright III, The Roches, Kathy Mattea and more. All performances were recorded live on the Mountain Stage.
  • 8:00pm – 9:00pm – A Jazz Piano Christmas – Join the Kennedy Center and NPR Music for this annual holiday tradition highlighting jazz pianists and their favorite seasonal music, captured live in concert with a small audience. The all- star lineup includes Patrice Rushen, Gerald Clayton and Eric Reed. Felix Contreras hosts.

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