Brass music lends the holidays a special grandeur, and this December the celebrated Empire Brass visits Saint Paul Sunday to help ring in the season. Along with traditional tunes and carols, the quintet will play glorious antiphonal and classical works that evoke the spirit of the time. We'll hear music of Russian composers, including two of Pytor Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Dances, as well as works by Susato, Purcell, Holborne and Albinoni.

Musical Highlights:
Tylman Susato: Dance Bergeret
Sergei Prokofiev: Morning Dance from "Romeo and Juliet"
Sergei Prokofiev: Troika and Sleigh Ride from Lieutenant Kiji Suite
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni: Introduction and Allegro
Henry Purcell: March from the Married Beau
Anonymous: Kesh and Kid on the Mountain
Anthony Holborne: Gigue
Piotr Illych Tchaikovsky: Dance Arabe and Dance Russe
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni: Alleluia
Lowell Mason: Joy to the World
Traditional, English: The First First Noël Traditional, French: Ding Dong Merrily on High!
Traditional, Welsh (tune: Nos Galan): Deck the Halls
Traditional, English: The Holly and the Ivy
Christmas Encore: Jingle Bells / O Come, All Ye Faithful

The Dale Warland Singers were America's premiere mixed-voice a capella choir, and their annual Echoes of Christmas concert a beloved tradition in public radio since the 1980s, airing each year on nearly 200 stations. Founder and music director, Dale Warland, retired from the group this past spring, and this will be the final chance to hear his famed ensemble as recorded in December 2003. The centerpiece of the program will be Francis Poulenc's gorgeous Four Motets for Christmas. There's also a blend of traditional carols in handsome arrangements, like "Still, Still, Still," arranged by Norman Luboff. American composer, Eric Whitacre, has written a breathtakingly beautiful new work "Lux Aurumque"—continuing the proud DWS commitment to music of our time-that is the highpoint of the concert.

Musical Highlights:
TRAD.: Sussex Carol
TRAD.: What Child Is This?
TRAD.: The First Noel
FRANCIS POULENC: Four Motets for Christmastime
FRANK FERKO: A Festival of Carols
JOHN MUEHLEISEN: Invocation
ERIC WHITACRE: Lux Aurumque
ABBIE BETINIS: Cedit, Hyems
MATTHEW CULLOTON: God's Mother Be
TRAD.: Still, Still, Still
TRAD.: Ding, Dong, Merrily on High
TRAD.: Silent Night

For the past several years, on a Thursday in early December, approximately 400 people gather on the stage of Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. They come from Moorhead in northwestern Minnesota and from across the Red River from Fargo, on comfortable coaches with baggage compartments full of clothes and instruments. From Concordia College, they bring Christmas.

The Concordia College Christmas concerts are a tough ticket to get. The performance invariably sells out. It is for many the official beginning of the Christmas season. Artistic Director René Clausen is an internationally renowned choral conductor, composer and clinician. He and his staff create a dramatic service around a central theme for the Christmas concert. This year, Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd," serves as the inspirational guide for the music and the retelling of the Christmas story.

Four choirs, an orchestra and a bell choir perform, creating a nearly indescribable impression. Voices and instruments combine to create a beautiful, powerful and heartfelt sound centered on one the story of the birth of Jesus. The music ranges from Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms to Michael Haydn's Run Ye Shepherds to the Light to traditional Christmas carols sung.

This 59-minute program-produced by award-winning producer Silvester Vicic-will be hosted by singer and raconteur Joe Carter, who is also featured in the Gabriel award-winning Speaking of Faith program "Joe Carter and the Legacy of the African-American Spiritual."

Speaking of Faith presents: Children and God, a special for the holidays. The great 20th century educational pioneer Maria Montessori observed that children have an intuition for religious life that begins at an early age. Host Krista Tippett examines children's aptitude for matters of the spirit with Harvard researcher Robert Coles, pediatric oncologist Diane Komp, and children of many faiths. That's Children and God—a holiday special.

The world-famous Choir of King's College Cambridge is visiting North America during the 2004 holiday season, and American Public Media is catching the singers in concert at the Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul, MN. Stephen Cleobury directs a stunning program that will culminate in the lovely Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The broadcast will be the perfect holiday companion to the Choir's Christmas Eve tradition, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (also offered live this year by American Public Media).

Musical Highlights:
POULENC Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël, Op. 152 ("Four Christmas Motets")
BRITTEN A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Fantasia on Christmas Carols

The sound of one, pure, solitary child's voice rings out each Christmas Eve at the Chapel of King's College in Cambridge. It heralds the beginning and the continuation of over 97 years of heartfelt tradition known as A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.

The service begins as it has since 1918, with a boy soprano singing the opening line to "Once in Royal David's City." It has grown into a symbol that signals it's time, after all of the hustle and bustle of preparing for the holiday, to settle down to the true meaning of Christmas and to focus on family traditions.

Each year, selected speakers from the King's College community read the lessons. These are woven among great anthems that originate from deep inside the storied English choral tradition. The choir not only performs the anthems every year, it also performs a newly-commissioned work, rooting the service firmly in the present and the past.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is broadcast live on Christmas Eve. It airs on over 300 stations annually. It is hosted by Michael Barone, well known as the host of Pipedreams and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra broadcasts.

Christmas is about tradition—a special meal, a family gathering, a favorite song. Peter Ostroushko's traditions are rooted in the Ukrainian community of northeast Minneapolis. Growing up there, he heard mandolin and balalaika tunes played by his father at home and in church. At Christmastime, the family would brave the frigid Minnesota nights and carol door to door, warming the hearts of friends and neighbors. Peter and his friends will play traditional Ukrainian carols, and holiday music from around the world. You'll also hear heartfelt originals and a few surprises as well.

The concert comes to you from the intimate confines of The Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul Minnesota, home of A Prairie Home Companion. Ostroushko, his mandolin, and his fiddle are frequent guests on APHC, and he was even the show's music director for a few years. He's performed with hundreds of musicians, including Bob Dylan, Greg Brown, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In 2001 he was awarded a Bush Artist Fellowship for Music Composition and has recorded a number of CDs.

Musical Highlights:
Joy to the World
Little Drummer Boy
The Christmas Bells of Belfast
Bright Morning Stars
The Holly and the Ivy