NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff

Subject: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 10:50 AM

On today's "Morning Edition", Trio Mediaeval's Norwegian Christmas.

There's also a whole 52+ minute program, "Choirs And Carols: An NPR Christmas", made up of music from various groups who have visited NPR studios. It features music from Anonymous 4, Baltimore Consort, Kitka (a group of women from Oakland, CA, who sing an Eastern European repertoire), YL Men's Choir (from Finland), The Pittsburgh Symphony Brass, Trio Mediaeval (a trio of women from Norway), American Boy Choir (Princeton, NJ), Riga Dom Cathedral Boys Choir (from Latvia). This all looks like a real treat. This was not a broadcast program, but assembled for online listening from full pieces recorded in the making of broadcasts.

"A Holiday Mix from All Songs Considered" has a varied assortment, also online only.

Another varied assortment: "Jingle Jams: A Holiday Mix From NPR Music" -- they say "We asked 10 stations to send us 10 of their favorite holiday songs, mixed them up and this is what we got – a festive stream of songs by everyone from Bach to the Ramones to Louis Armstrong." It runs as a continuous loop of music.

Here's a participatory item: "Homework: Join Our National Caroling Party" -- record your own rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (no, this is not the Sheffield carols...) in the designated key and tempo, e-mail it in, and on Sunday, Dec. 21, they'll play as many versions as they can on All Things Considered.

In fact, here's an index page for all their holiday music!

NPR on the web is pretty cool, I've only started digging into it recently.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 11:00 AM

By the way, my links above are to the starting web pages, not directly to the sound files, so don't be shy in exploring...

you might want to check out Cajun Carols: New Orleans Christmas Jazz (aren't those two different things, even though they're in the same place?? -- it looks like it's really more jazz than Cajun).

Subject: RE: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 11:08 AM

VERY kewl!! My 5 yr old grandson has been singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town all week. We'll have to record him!

I've been looking for some good stuff to listen to; this sounds terrific. Thanks, Becky!

kat

Subject: RE: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 07:21 PM

Bump this up one more time. Too good to miss!

Subject: RE: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 10:12 AM

They had letters come in this morning in response to a musical saw performance they played earlier in the week. People found it difficult but apparently one set of family dogs were transfixed by the noise. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: NPR: interesting Christmas music stuff
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 11:41 AM

I posted about that earlier in the week (setting your filter to "singing saw"); also you can find that program in the handy index linked above. If you need to transfix any dogs, that is... ;-)

~ Becky in Tucson