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WEMC Holiday Specials

Our daytime and overnight classical programming will include an increasing amount of holiday music through Advent and Christmas.

Mostly Mennonite, Mostly Acapella will feature seasonal music each Sunday morning, from 8 to 9:30, including a Christmas Celebration on December 29, and an Epiphany special on January 5.

Sunday, Dec. 15th
7pm  Air Play – Happy Holidays
WEMC’s own presentation of local classical performances will celebrate with a special mix of holiday music from around the region.

Saturday, Dec. 21st
9am  Mel Lee’s Holiday Songbag

Sunday, Dec. 23rd
7pm  Air Play – Happy Holidays
WEMC’s own presentation of local classical performances will celebrate with a special mix of holiday music from around the region.

Tuesday, Dec. 24th (Christmas Eve)
8am  A Choral Christmas with Stile Antico
Celebrate Christmas with the sound of soaring voices. Stile Antico, the award-winning choir from London, pays a visit to St. Paul's Church on Harvard Square for a concert of radiant sacred music for the Christmas season by the most acclaimed composers of the renaissance. Hear the group's luminous blend of voices sing the intricately woven music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

9am  A Chanticleer Christmas
America's best-known male chorus celebrates the mystery and wonder of Christmas with a program that spans the globe and the centuries…from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic and contemporary carols.

10am  A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (LIVE)
This is the long-running live music and spoken-word broadcast from Cambridge, England with the 30-voice King's College Choir.

12pm  Glad Tidings of Great Joy
From the glorious cathedral chant, Veni Emmanuel, to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, this program offers some of the most splendid Christmas music ever to come from northern Europe. Two renowned musical institutions band together in this Early-Music tour de force: the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral Indianapolis, directed by Dr. Dana Marsh; and the Early Music Institute of the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, directed by Paul Elliott.

1pm  St. Olaf Christmas Festival
This much-loved service in song and word includes hymns, carols, choral works and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 St. Olaf College student musicians.

3pm  Messiah (The Christmas Portion) from Washington National Cathedral
Each year the Cathedral’s annual Messiah performances during the first weekend of December attract an audience of some 6000 from the greater Washington area. This year, we’ve gathered together a team of the finest international soloists, coming from the US and abroad.

4pm  Welcome Christmas!
An hour of joyful holiday music featuring the Minneapolis-based chorus, VocalEssence. Gramophone magazine called VocalEssence “excellent and vibrant.” NEA Chairman Dana Gioia named them “one of the irreplaceable music ensembles of our time.”

5pm  Christmas Music non-stop through Christmas Day

Wednesday, Christmas Day
Midnight-Midnight 24 hours of Classical Holiday Music!

Wednesday, Jan. 1st
11am  New Year's Day from Vienna 2014
Get ready to pop the New Year's Day champagne! The Vienna Philharmonic presents its annual salute to the waltz on New Year's Day 2014. The orchestra has invited Daniel Barenboim to welcome 2014 by conducting the annual New Year's concert, honoring his 25 years of musical collaboration with the orchestra, and his efforts to bring peace to the world through music. Hear the hit tunes of the Strauss family and others... polkas, gallops and waltzes, live from the Musikverein, on New Year's Day from Vienna.

Matt Bingay is the Executive Director and General Manager for WMRA and WEMC.