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WCLV Holiday Programming

Three important holidays come up in December – Christmas, Chanukkah and Kwanzaa – and WCLV is ready to help you celebrate all three with special programs of holiday music.
Pat Miller
/
Ideastream Public Media

CHRISTMAS

The Christmas season gets underway this year with Three Tales of Christmas with Cantus on Sunday, December 8 at 8 p.m. Join host Melissa Ousley as Cantus weaves together three holiday stories with time-honored carols and new classics. Blending narration and song, the program features Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Christine Lê’s The Hawai’i Snowman, alongside Mark Twain’s A Letter from Santa Claus, offering an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and joy of the holiday.

Then on Wednesday, December 18, it’s A Handel & Haydn Society Christmas with Cale Wiggins. Celebrate the season with this special featuring Christmas choral music from America’s oldest continuously performing ensemble, Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society. The hour features music from the 15th century to the late 20th; a Christmas for all times.

One of the most popular Christmas specials on WCLV is back with a new edition for 2024. St. Olaf Christmas Festival: Celebrating 150 Years of St. Olaf College with Valerie Kahler. For one and a half centuries, St. Olaf has been a hub of connections, knowledge, and growth. And for more than a century, the St. Olaf Christmas festival has been a cherished part of that history. Join us as we celebrate their legacy. It airs Tuesday, December 24 at 8 p.m. and repeats on Wednesday, December 25 at 2 p.m.

On Christmas Day, we’ll make your holiday festive with Welcome Christmas with Bonnie North at 9 a.m.; The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus at Christmas with WCLV’s Robert Conrad at noon; YourClassical Christmas Favorites as ranked by listeners to YourClassical.org at 5 p.m.; and All is Bright: Contemplative Music for Christmas at 11 p.m.

 For the weekend after Christmas, be sure to tune in for The Film Score: Music for the Winter Holidays with Michael Phillips. The film critic of the Chicago Tribune hosts an hour of holiday and wintertime movie music. In addition to standards (“White Christmas” from Holiday Inn and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Meet Me in St. Louis), it’s an eclectic mix of wintry film scores, from “It Happened in Sun Valley” (from Sun Valley Serenade) and Alexandre Desplat’s folk-inspired score for The Grand Budapest Hotel to Bernard Herrmann’s bracing sleigh ride composed for the Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Hear it Saturday, December 28 at 5 p.m.

CHANUKKAH
 
For Chanukkah, a longtime favorite returns. Candles Burning Brightly with Mindy Ratner is a delightful hour for everyone to celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights! Lots of music from Jewish communities around the world, plus a hilarious lesson on how to prepare a classic Chanukah dish, and a timeless and touching holiday story that brings light into every home. Thursday, December 26 at 8 p.m.

On Tuesday, December 31 at 4 p.m., Chanukah Memories and Melodies features interviews with artists and public personalities about their Chanukah memories, grounded in the music tied to their holiday memories. Guests include cellist Alisa Weilerstein, Broadway actress Tovah Feldshuh, Sephardic music expert and flutist Daphna Mor, musician and Yiddish musicologist Henry Sapoznik, poet, musician and author Aaron Dworkin, and Eric Jacobsen, artistic director of The Knights.

Then at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 31, it’s Itzhak Perlman’s Chanukah Radio Party. Join the superstar violinist as he tells the story of the Jewish festival of lights and shares his favorite recordings for the holiday – some serious, some silly. This engaging hour includes numbers from Itzhak Perlman’s radio-addicted childhood in Israel; evocative songs in Yiddish and Ladino; classical music that revolves around the Maccabee heroes of the story; and Chanukah gems by American folk singers. The master storyteller also regales you with jokes and memories, plus tales of three classic Chanukah symbols: the menorah, the latke, and, of course, the dreidel.

KWANZAA

Be sure to join us on Friday, December 27 at 8 p.m. when we bring you The Sounds of Kwanzaa with Garrett McQueen. The history of the African American holiday Kwanzaa and its guiding principles, alongside music that highlights the spirit of the celebration. The hour features the compositions of Florence Price, Duke Ellington, Sean O’Loughlin, and special performances by Imani Winds.