Just like hanging lights, wrapping gifts and baking cookies, holiday programming on KSKA is a time honored tradition and it starts on Saturday Dec. 21, Winter Solstice.
Here’s the full holiday line-up:
Saturday, Dec. 21
- 8:00 PM New! Winter Solstice Celebration: One of NPR’s most popular holiday specials returns with new talent and old friends. Malian singer Abdoulaye Diabate joins The Paul Winter Consort with Paul McCandless, the Drummers of The Fores of Nature, Gospel vocalist Theresa Thomason, and the historic reassembly of the Paul Winter Sextet in the World’s Largest Gothic Cathedral — New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. (NPR)
Sunday, Dec. 22
- 2:00 PM A Christmas Celtic Sojourn 2013: direct from the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, a Celtic celebration of the season, with top-flight traditional singers and instrumentalists, and a story or two from host Brian O’Donovan. (PRI)
- 7:00 PM Festivo Alt. Latino: Latin American holiday traditions often reflect both indigenous and European roots with distinct characteristics that are often only similar in the language used. NPR Music’s Alt.Latino hosts Felix Contreras and Jasmine Garsd take us on a Latin American holiday travelogue through the eyes and ears of four very different Latin Alternative musicians who put aside their contemporary sounds and go back to their musical and cultural roots. (NPR)
Monday, Dec. 23
- 10:00 AM New! Winter Solstice Celebration [R]
- 2:00 PM Tinsel Tales: This program features stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris, Bailey White, John Henry Faulk — these and other NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Hosted by Lynn Neary. (NPR)
- 9:00 PM Tinsel Tales [R]
Tuesday, Dec. 24 Christmas Eve
- 8:01 AM Alaska Public Media’s T’was The Night Before Christmas during
- 9:00 AM Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: Hosted by Michael Barone, this is a live stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King’s College in Cambridge, England. The 30-voice King’s College Choir performs the legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music. (APM)
- 11:00 AM A Chanticleer Christmas: A celebration of the season as told through the glorious voices of Chanticleer, the 12-voice San Francisco-based men’s choir. The program spans the globe and the centuries — from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic contemporary carols. (APM)
- 12:00 PM The World
- 1:00 PM Marketplace
- 1:30 PM KSKA Holiday Music
- 2:00 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. (NPR)
- 3:01 PM Alaska Public Media’s T’was The Night Before Christmas
- 3:05 PM Tinsel Tales 2: NPR fills millions of homes each holiday with humor, warmth, and a host of festive voices. Continuing with the tradition of the first Tinsel Tales program, this is another collection of the best and most requested holiday stories. Joy, hope, and childhood memories overflow as NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. (NPR)
- 4:00 PM All Things Considered with Alaska Public Media’s T’was The Night Before Christmas
- 5:44 PM Alaska Public Media’s T’was The Night Before Christmas during All Things Considered
- 6:00 PM Alaska News Nightly
- 6:30 PM Marketplace [R]
- 7:00 PM Jonathan Winter’s Christmas Carol: An updated version of a public radio tradition hosted by NPR’s Susan Stamberg. Master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of Dickens’ holiday classic, with a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. Also featuring Mimi Kennedy. (NPR / KCRW)
- 8:00 PM Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols [R]
- 10:01 PM Alaska Public Media’s T’was The Night Before Christmas
- 10:05 PM World Café
Wednesday, Dec. 25 Christmas Day
- 8:00 AM St Olaf’s: Northfield, Minnesota welcomes over 600 student musicians for this year’s annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival, a 100-year-old tradition deeply cherished in this part of the country, as well as listened to raptly by millions throughout the world. (APM)
- 10:00 AM Welcome Christmas: A perennial broadcast favorite featuring the Minneapolis-based ensemble, VocalEssence. Recognized internationally as one of America’s premier choral arts organizations, VocalEssence is led by the visionary Philip Brunelle. (APM)
- 11:00 AM Christmas with Morehouse and Spelman Glee Clubs [R]
- 12:00 PM The World
- 1:00 PM Handel’s Messiah: No holiday season is complete without Handel’s stunning oratorio, and one of Boston’s most cherished holiday traditions: Music Director Harry Christophers leads the Handel & Haydn Society Period Instrument Orchestra, Chorus, and internationally-acclaimed soloists in Handel’s dramatic masterwork, in the acoustic splendor of Boston’s Symphony Hall. (PRI)
- 4:00 PM All Things Considered
- 6:00 PM St Olaf’s [R]
- 8:00 PM A Chanticleer Christmas [R]
- 9:00 PM Jazz Christmas: NPR Music brings you another great concert from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Andy Bey, Stanley Cowell, Sullivan Fortner and Michele Rosewoman perform their favorite holiday songs. (NPR)
Thursday, Dec. 26 Kwaanza begins
- 2:00 PM A Season’s Griot: This one-hour celebration in story and song is public radio’s only nationally syndicated Kwanzaa program. Hosted for nearly 20 years by acclaimed storyteller Madafo Lloyd Wilson, this annual special captures the tales and traditions of African American and African peoples. This year’s program will celebrate Family with familiar and favorite elements of Griot, and plenty of music.
- 9:00 PM A Season’s Griot [R]
Tuesday, Dec. 31 New Year’s Eve
- 2:00 PM TED Radio Hour: Giving It Away. You can give away almost anything – your time, money, food, your ideas. Giving helps define who we are and helps us connect with others. And thanks to the internet and a rise in social consciousness, there’s been a seismic shift not only in what we’re giving, but how. In this hour, stories from TED speakers who are “giving it away” in new and surprising ways, and the things that happen in return
- 7:00 PM – 12:00 AM Toast of the Nation: Toast of the Nation 2013-14 will make New Year’s Eve stops in Boston, Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Denver and the Monterey Jazz Festival! NPR’s Toast of the Nation is perfect for the occasion. It’s jazz that you can party to, all night from coast to coast, with countdowns to midnight in all four continental time zones. Spirited, improvised, grooving and swinging, each segment is a stop in a sequence of celebrations and contributing something new to the musical feast. (NPR)
Wednesday, Jan. 1 New Year’s Day
- 10:00 AM New Year’s Day Live from Vienna: 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 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. Hosted by Laura Carlo of WCRB Classical New England, a service of WGBH. (NPR)
- 6:00 PM New Year’s Day Live from Vienna
KSKA’s regular schedule resumes on Jan. 6, 2014. For a complete broadcast schedule click here. Wishing you a warm and happy holidays!
