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Holiday Programs for Christmas Day

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Merry Christmas from KRTS Marfa! Here’s a rundown of the special programs we have scheduled for today.

10 AM, 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.

11 AM, A Carolina Christmas from NPR –Direct from the largest room in the largest private home in the country, WDAV and NPR present A Carolina Christmas From Biltmore Estate, With Kathy Mattea — a new special featuring classic and contemporary holiday songs.

2 PM, Juke in the Back’s R&B Christmas – This show is loaded with the greatest R&B Christmas records from the late 1940s and 1950s.  It’s the yuletide soul that came before rock n’ roll.  From the all-time classics by Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters and The Orioles to some rarer Christmas plattahs from Amos Milburn, JB Summers and The Five Keys.

3 PM, Professor Mikey's Chill Christmas - This year's holiday mix offers a "Chill Christmas."  The music is not completely mellow, in fact it rocks here and there, but the mood is one of calm and serenity at this, the craziest, coldest time of the year.  Professor Mikey also explores the evolution of the word chill, how it came about in the time of Thomas Beckett, but then how it evolved so that in the era of Ronald Reagan it had come to mean relaxation.

5 PM, Choirs and Carols - Hear musicians from around the world in NPR’s performance studio as they share special holiday moments. Join us for ancient harmonies from Trio Medieval, traditional carols from the Riga Dom Boys Choir, and a rarely heard Christmas song by Sibelius, straight from Finland’s YL Choir. The Pittsburgh Brass unpacks a pair of 500-pound bells to ring in the holiday, and the members of Trio Voronezh tune up a balalaika or two.

6 PM to 8 PM, Christmas Vespers with Apollo’s Fire – Apollo’s Fire gives a rousing, vital performance of music that the early 17th century German composer Michael Praetorius might have used at Lutheran services for Advent and Christmas Day Vespers. The concert features a “big band” of strings, winds, children’s and adult’s voices, and period brass including sackbuts, trumpets, and cornetti. Included are settings of familiar chorales such as In Dulci Jubilo, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland and Joseph Lieber Joseph Mein; and such beloved Praetorius compositions as Puer Natus in Bethlehem and Lo How a Rose. The Boston Globe says that Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra, is “one of America’s leading Baroque orchestras, capable of competing with Europe’s much-recorded bands.”

8 PM to 10 PM, Dave's Jazz Christmas - A jazz Christmas card to you from KRTS Marfa.

Have a happy and safe holiday!