Tune in to KRTS every day this week for special holiday programming. Here's what we've got on the schedule for today:
10 AM, A Cowboy Christmas from the Western Folklife Center - A Cowboy Christmas celebrates the holiday with memories, music, and poetry of people who live and work in the isolation of America's outback. Some of the stories and songs are family traditions passed down through the generations while others are new works inspired by Christmas on the lonely range. This program features poets Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, and Native American singer and comedian Vincent Craig.
11 AM to 1 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."
3 PM, 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.
9 PM to 11 PM, The Retro Cocktail Hour Christmas Special - You'll cha cha all the way with an all new Christmas special from The Retro Cocktail Hour. It's two hours of swinging bachelor pad tunes, crooner classics, over-stimulated stereophonic pop and tiki tunes for the season. This year we've got songs by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Louis Armstrong, and more.