Friday, December 3, at 3:00 pm
Host Mike Savage is joined by Secretary of State Cathy Cox, Public Service Commission Chairman Robert Baker, and a representative from the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, to answer listeners' consumer questions. The number to call is 1-866-RADIO-GA (1-866-723-4642).
Saturday, December 4, at 1:30 pm
Heggie: End of the Affair (world premiere)
Houston Grand Opera has averaged nearly one world premiere every year for almost three decades. The latest one is based on the novel by Graham Greene. Jake Heggie also composed Dead Man Walking, heard on World of Opera earlier this year. Patrick Summers conducts.
Cheryl Barker (Sarah); Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Maurice); Peter Coleman-Wright (Henry); Robert Orth (Parkis); Joseph Evans (Smythe); Katherine Ciesinski (Sarah's Mother)
Saturday, December 4, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, December 5, at 1:00 pm
This episode of From the Top comes to you from the biennial Convention MENC: The National Association of Music Education in Minneapolis. You'll hear a young baritone from Fort Worth, Texas, singing Schubert and a teenage ensemble from Chicago playing the "Andante Cantabile" from Schumann's Piano Quartet. Also, we'll discuss that venerable American teenage institution, the High School Prom, with a young trumpeter on today's show -- and you'll find out why wearing a powder blue tux is a bad, bad idea.
Wednesday, December 8, at 8:00 pm
Narrated by Leonard Nimoy, and featuring the acclaimed vocal sextet The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, this unique holiday broadcast was created especially for public radio listeners.
The performers present 25 eclectic selections in celebration of Chanukah, from the Ladino songs of the Spanish Jews and Yiddish melodies of Eastern Europe, to modern Israeli tunes and the ensemble's original version of "I Have a Little Dreydle." The Western Wind sings a cappella as well as with instrumental accompaniment. The narration, written by Rabbi Gerald Skolnik, sheds new light on the holiday's customs and rituals.
(Pre-empts first hour of Studio GPB)
Saturday, December 11, at 1:30 pm
Wagner: The Flying Dutchman
Wagner's stormy classic, straight from the source -- the composer's own theater in Bayreuth. Perhaps Wagner's most approachable and exciting take on one of his favorite themes, redemption in the form of love. From the 2004 Bayreuth Festival. Marc Albrecht conducts.
John Tomlinson (Dutchman); Adrienne Dugger (Senta); Jaakko Ryhanen (Daland); Alfons Eberz (Erik); Uta Priew (Mary); Tomislav Muzek (Steersman)
Saturday, December 11, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Saturday, December 11, at 9:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Sunday, December 12, at 1:00 pm
From the Top heads to Atlanta, Georgia, to record in the beautiful Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University, where audiences will hear the Atlanta Youth Choir and a 12-year-old violinist from Pennsylvania playing a violin concerto by Samuel Barber.
Saturday, December 18, at 1:30 pm
Wagner: Das Rheingold
More from the 2004 Bayreuth Festival. The compact first installment of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, featuring a stellar cast under the direction of conductor Adam Fischer.
Alan Titus (Wotan); Hartmus Welker (Alberich); Mihoko Fujimura (Fricka); Anja Kampe (Freia); Philip Kang (Fafner); Johann Tilli (Fasolt); Simone Shroeder (Erda); Arnold Bezuyen (Loge); Endrich Wottrich (Froh); Olaf Bär (Donner)
Saturday, December 18, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, December 19, at 1:00 pm
Special guest Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg joins host Christopher O'Riley and his young musical guests for a great program recorded at Jordan Hall in Boston.
Tuesday, December 21, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, December 26, at 10:00 pm
Produced by Alan Cooke of member station WACG in Augusta, The Augusta Opera at St. Paul’s returns to GPB this month. Now in its 21st season in the spectacular acoustics of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, this moving and powerful concert has become an established Augusta holiday tradition. This year’s program features soprano Jan Grissom, mezzo-soprano Maria Zifchak, tenor Benjamin Warschawski, and baritone Frank Hernandez. Conductor Mark D. Flint leads the Augusta Opera Chorus and Orchestra and the Augusta Children’s Chorale, with John Gawf at the piano.
(Pre-empts Studio GPB)
Wednesday, December 22, at 8:00 pm
In one of the great holiday traditions in America, the choirs of Atlanta’s Morehouse and Spelman Colleges -- two of the most prestigious historically black institutions in the nation -- get together to present a spine-tingling concert program. It's a joyous celebration of the schools' tradition of singing excellence, with their trademark mixture of spirituals, carols, and sacred texts. NPR’s Korva Coleman is the host.
(Pre-empts first hour of Studio GPB)
Thursday, December 23, at 11:00 am
A wonderful performance of Handel's masterpiece from Symphony Hall in Boston by the venerable Handel and Haydn Society. The society gave the American premiere of Messiah in 1818, and beginning on Christmas Eve 1853, has presented it every year since. We'll hear H & H's 150th consecutive annual performance of Messiah, with new Handel & Haydn Society Music Director Grant Llewellyn conducting. The soloists are soprano Lisa Saffer, alto Pamela Dellal, tenor Benjamin Butterfield, and baritone Jason Howard. Hosted by NPR’s Lisa Simeone and Cathy Fuller of Boston public radio station WGBH.
(Pre-empts Midday Music)
Thursday, December 23, at 8:00 pm
Handel's holiday treasure gets a contemporary spin in this hip, genre-stretching version of The Messiah. Rita Houston hosts this two-hour special featuring folk, jazz, rock, gospel, blues, bluegrass, a cappella, and other interpretations of Handel's ageless classic.
The 2004 edition gathers the best performances from previous years, including Dar Williams, Marshall Crenshaw, Terre Roche, and trumpeter Randy Brecker, and new performances and arrangements from Jane Siberry, David Johansen, and other soloists. The performers share the stage with a chamber orchestra and chorus, along with narrators (and long-time New York City radio veterans) Meg Griffin and Vin Scelsa. The Downtown Messiah was conceived by songwriter/performer Richard Barone, veteran of the downtown New York music scene and the event's director, who describes it as an effort to "reinterpret Handel's masterwork through respectful modernization."
(Pre-empts Studio GPB)
Friday, December 24, at 10:00 am
The sound of one, pure, solitary child's voice rings out each Christmas Eve in the Chapel of King's College in Cambridge, England. It heralds the beginning of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, the continuation of 97 years of heartfelt tradition. 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 the 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 in the storied English choral tradition. The choir also performs a newly-commissioned work each year, bringing the service into the present as well as continuing the tradition of the past. Michael Barone hosts this live Christmas Eve broadcast.
(Pre-empts second hour of Performance Today and beginning of Midday Music)
Saturday, December 25, at 1:30 pm
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel
Just in time for the holidays, it's Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. The opera premiered December 23rd, 1893, and has been a Christmas classic ever since. It is based on the famous Brothers Grimm story of two innocent children who get lost in the woods. Andreas Delfs conducts the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
Heidi Grant Murphy (Gretel); Susanne Mentzer (Hansel); Judith Forst (Witch); Robert Orth (Peter); Janice Taylor (Gertrud); Anna Christy (Dew Fairy, Sandman)
Saturday, December 25, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Saturday, December 25, at 9:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Sunday, December 26, at 1:00 pm
This week, From the Top returns to Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. You'll hear some of the school's top student musicians, including a teenage ensemble performing a movement from Mozart's Oboe Quartet and an 18-year-old saxophonist performing a piece by Eugene Bozza. You'll also meet two talented clarinetists who have inspired a dubious new TV series called "Two Peas in a Pod."
Sunday, December 26, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, January 2, at 10:00 am
This month, an encore presentation of the April 2004 show. Host St. John Flynn and Atlanta novelist Milam McGraw Propst talk and take calls about her novel, Ociee on Her Own (Mercer University Press, 2003). When Ociee Nash’s mother died in the closing years of the 19th century, the nine-year-old was sent to live with her aunt in Asheville, North Carolina. Now, as a new century dawns, the spirited Ociee returns to her father in Mississippi and to a new life. A sequel to Propst’s A Flower Blooms on Charlotte Street, Ociee on Her Own is a story of growing up, of hope, and of love.
Friday, December 31, at 3:00 pm, and Sunday, January 2, at 10:00 am
Southern storyteller and humorist Bud Harbis comes to GPB. Set in Harbis’ hardware store on the courthouse square of the fictional Georgia town of Pointing Dog, The Pointing Dog Social Club features a fun mix of humor from members of the "club" and notable music recording artists performing songs that span the spectrum from country music to blues. Headlining the musical performances for The Pointing Dog Social Club are legendary country and rock musician Marshall Chapman, and Jim Wann, the Tony-nominated author and performer of Broadway’s Pump Boys and Dinettes.
(Pre-empts Georgia Gazette)
Friday, December 31, at 8:00 pm
NPR and WBGO, Jazz 88 in Newark, present the 25th anniversary edition of Toast of the Nation, ten hours of jazz and blues from Europe and across the USA on New Year's Eve. The party is bigger, better, and longer than ever before!
At 8:00 pm, from the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, A Tribute to Shirley Horn: The Music Never Ends. An all-star lineup of jazz singers pay homage to Washington native Shirley Horn. Miss Horn will sing, and be sung to by such admirers as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sheila Jordan, Kevin Mahogany, and Lizz Wright.
At 10:00 pm, from New York, A Great Night in Harlem: The Apollo Theatre Tribute to Ray Charles. Brother Ray is remembered in a memorial concert sponsored by the Jazz Foundation of America, featuring pianist Kenny Barron and violinist Regina Carter, actor/singer Danny Aiello and the Arturo O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra rhythm section, Diane Schuur, guitarist James Blood Ulmer, and much more.
At 11:00 pm, live from New York, the new Jazz at Lincoln Center. Pianist Cyrus Chestnut and special guests ring in 2005 at the new House of Swing on Columbus Circle.
At 12:15 am, live from Clarksdale, Mississippi, New Year's Eve House Party at the Ground Zero Blues Club. The James Mathus Knockdown Society and special guests ring in 2005 in a club co-owned by actor Morgan Freeman that exists to celebrate today's Mississippi blues.
At 1:15 am, live from Denver, Latin Giants of Jazz. Mambo and cha cha your way into the New Year, with Latin Giants of Jazz (formerly the Tito Puente Orchestra) and special guest Eddie Palmieri, playing music by Latin jazz masters Machito, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, and Tito Rodriguez.
At 2:15 am, live from Yoshi's in Oakland, California, Joshua Redman Elastic Trio with Sam Yahel, organ, and Brian Blade, drums. A band that stretches the sound of the traditional jazz organ trio, calling to mind Weather Report, James Brown, and John McLaughlin. Groove-based electric jazz for a California midnight.
At 3:30 am, live from Paris, Olivier Témime Lombards All Stars. We'll take you to a legendary Paris jazz spot, Club Sunside on the Rue des Lombards, to ring in the New Year Parisian style.
At 5:00 am, an encore airing of A Great Night in Harlem: The Apollo Theatre Tribute to Ray Charles.
At 6:00 am - go to bed!
(Pre-empts Piano Jazz, The Jazz Spot, and the Jazz Satellite Network)
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Page updated 12/29/04