MONDAY, DECEMBER 24
9 AM – Festival of Nine Lessons
Hosted by Michael Barone, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is a live music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King's College in Cambridge, England.
10 AM – Saint Olaf Christmas Festival
This service in song and word has become one of the nation's most cherished holiday celebrations. 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. SymphonyCast host Alison Young shares the sights and sounds of this choral favorite.
2 PM – Hungry for the Holidays with Julia Child
Everyone knows Julia Child loved to cook, but not everyone knows she loved to read. Long ago she started work on a series of specials that are only just now being completed and aired -- stories about food and a little cooking, but mostly about people. "A Christmas Carol is a lovely story to read over the holidays," she says, "because it has a happy ending." Peter Donat, a star of her favorite TV show, "Murder She Wrote," brings the story to life -- with sounds and music that stimulate the theatre of the mind. Next Julia introduces her old friend, M.F.K. Fisher, who was, in the words of the poet W.H. Auden, "the best prose-writer in America." The recording took place in the author's tiny house set in a meadow, with cows poking their noses to the window. Julia paints a funny, spontaneous portrait of her friend -- especially her "wicked" streak. The story Mary Frances Kennedy reads is "I Was Really Very Hungry," about a meal served off-season in a famous Burgundian restaurant, the passionate chef slaving in the kitchen, the passionate waitress bringing course after course to the only diner in the building, M.F.K. Fisher, whose pleasure shifts to fear as she finds herself "a victim of these stranded gourmets."
3 PM – A Baroque Christmas in the New World
Welcome to A Baroque Christmas in the New World, a special holiday edition of Harmonia.
We’re celebrating the holidays with a unique performance of music from 17th- and 18th-century Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, including a cantata and three free-standing works by colonial Mexican composer Manuel de Sumaya – works that have not been performed since his lifetime!
Join us as musicians of the Historical Performance Institute at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University bring these sparkling works to life once again.
7 PM – A Christmas Carol with Jonathan Winters
Master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of this holiday classic, using a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. He re-creates Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley's spirit and the three Christmas ghosts: Past, Present and Future. Mimi Kennedy also performs.
The choirs of two of the most prestigious historically black institutions in the nation join together to present a spine-tingling concert program.
8 PM – Humankind Special: The Christmas Truce
Produced in association with WGBH/Boston. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, we take a moving look at the 1914 Christmas Truce, in which opposing soldiers in WW1 risked court-martial by laying down their arms. They actually exchanged holiday gifts and sang carols together during their short-lived ceasefire on the frozen battlefield of Flanders, Belgium. John McCutcheon performs and discusses his Grammy-nominated folksong, 'Christmas in the Trenches', which he sang decades after the war for elderly veterans who participated in the truce. And we hear details from historians Stanley Weintraub and Scott Bennett who have written about fascinating war-time peace efforts.
9 PM – DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. – THE CHRISTMAS MESSAGE OF HOPE
Today, the fifth of six programs honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It's the final lecture of Dr. King's Massey lectures. This one is more a sermon than a lecture- it aired on Christmas Eve 1967.
10:30 PM – Handel's Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
A performance of Handel's much adored oratorio is led by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Manfred Honeck and features a cast of guest vocalists with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
10 PM – A COOL CHRISTMAS (CHRISTMAS JAZZ)
An hour-long program of classic jazz. Come along for a jazz sleigh ride with music from Shirley Horn, Paul Bley, Duke Ellington, and more.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25
9 AM – 2018 MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS CONCERT
The Mississippi College Singers present their annual “Festival of Lights” Christmas performance, filmed before a live audience at MC’s historic Provine Chapel. Songs and scripture readings tell the story of the birth of Jesus in the English traditions of Lessons and Carols. Conducted by Mark Nabholz.
9:30 AM – A Paul Winter Solstice Celebration
Since 1980, saxophonist Paul Winter has brought musicians from around the world together for his Winter Solstice Celebration, a festive performance marking the passing of the longest night and the return of the sun.
2 PM – The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice
"The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice 2018" is an all-new, two-hour compilation of musical excerpts, plus a few short poetry and prose readings, selected from the live Christmas/Winter Solstice Revels stage productions that took place in December 2017, in eight cities across the United States.
7 PM – Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
8 PM – The 2018 MISSISSIPPI COLLEGE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS CONCERT
The Mississippi College Singers present their annual “Festival of Lights” Christmas performance, filmed before a live audience at MC’s historic Provine Chapel. Songs and scripture readings tell the story of the birth of Jesus in the English traditions of Lessons and Carols. Conducted by Mark Nabholz.
9 PM – THE MOREHOUSE SPELMAN CHRISTMAS CONCERT
The choirs of two of the most prestigious historically black institutions in the nation join together to present a spine-tingling concert program.
