2012 Holiday Programming

Monday, 12/24

12:00 Tinsel Tales: NPR Christmas Favorites
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.

1:00 All Songs Considered for the Holidays
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.

8:00 Jonathan Winters' A Christmas Carol
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. From NPR and KCRW.

9:00 Jazz Piano Christmas XXIII
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.

10:00 A Paul Winter Solstice Concert
Once again on the darkest night of the year, NPR 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. The performance brings traditional holiday favorites including JS Bach and American gospel -- and welcomes new sounds from as far as Zimbabwe and Brazil -- and as near as the mountains of North Carolina. WNYC'S John Schaefer hosts this NPR holiday broadcast favorite.

Tuesday, 12/25

10:00 New for 2012: Welcome Christmas. Bring a Torch!
This year's program puts the focus on old French carols, alongside two world premieres in the annual VocalEssence/American Composers Forum Christmas carol contest. The new carols call for the intriguing combination of men's chorus with English horn.

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 fourteenth year by APM's John Birge.

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.

11:00 Roll Credits: "A Hollywood Holiday"
During the holidays we unpack, dust off and polish up countless traditions. Some are surrounded by festive foods, others involve preparing and decorating for family, friends and homecomings. Many of these special times include classic movies that take us back to wonderful Christmases past. Lynne Warfel shares music that made great films from "A Christmas Carol" to "Polar Express" come alive with the warmth and sparkle of the season.

12:00 Jonathan Winters Repeat

1:00 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.

8:00 A Season's Griot 2012
An hour-long Kwanzaa celebration in story and song, again hosted by Madafo Lloyd Wilson. This year's program features youth as the special guest griots, reading their own original and traditional stories. Familiar and favorite elements of Griot will also be in place with plenty of music, and an original composition by the show's poet laureate, Beverly Fields Burnette.

9:00 Christmas with 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. It's a joyous celebration of the schools' tradition of singing excellence, with their trademark mixture of spirituals and carols. Korva Coleman hosts.

10:00 The Great American Songbook: Holiday Special 2012
What makes a song last? Join host Philip Furia for an enduring body of holiday songs, performed generation after generation by musicians and singers in styles that range from jazz to blues, rock to country. Hear the stories behind the songs, and hear familiar artists singing them. The program shows how the Great American Songbook came into being during the first half of the 20th-century through the interplay of the sheet-music publishing industry known as "Tin Pan Alley," the Broadway musical, the emergence of radio in the 1920s, the advent of sound movies, the creation of a jazz repertoire, and developments in the recording industry.

11:00 Hollywood Holiday Repeat

Monday, 12/31

8:00 Toast of the Nation
An NPR tradition every New Year's Eve since the 1970s, Toast of the Nation is perfect for the occasion. It's jazz that you can party to, all night from coast to coast, 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 and contributing something new to the musical feast. WBGO's Rhonda Hamilton anchors the show.
Our headliner Wynton Marsalis rings in 2013 Eastern Time playing the music of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens, live from Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center

Tuesday, 1/1

9:00 Season’s Griot Repeat

10:00 Paul Winter Repeat