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Holiday Specials 2020

Some are new, some are annual favorites, and some are timeless classic stories...all intended to bring you a little holiday comfort and joy. Tune in to KWGS Public Radio 89.5 or KWTU Classical 88.7 during these days and times to hear holiday specials on Public Radio Tulsa. You can also listen live on our websiteHERE

Sunday, December 6 | 8:00 -10 p.m.
CSO Presents Messiah   
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra presents Georg Frideric Handel’s oratorio “Messiah” in a performance with early music specialist conductor Matthew Halls, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and soloists. This special broadcast in the weekly series provides a beautiful start to your holiday season.

Tuesday, December 8 | 6:00 -7:00 p.m.
Tulsa Holiday Lights   
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

Join us for Holiday Lights Tuesday, Dec. 8th at 6:00p.m. on KWTU Classical 88.7: A potpourri of seasonal favorites, curated by Classical Tulsa's Jason Heilman.

Thursday, December 10 | Noon - 1:00 p.m.
Friday, December 11 |8:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Hanukkah Lights 2020
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

A perennial NPR favorite with all new Hanukkah stories. Hosted and read by Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz.

Sunday, December 13 | 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
The Rhythm Atlas Hanukkah Special
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Denis McGilvray celebrates Hanukkah music from around the world on this week’s special holiday edition of The Rhythm Atlas. You’ll hear traditional klezmer tunes, songs from the Sephardic Jewish culture with roots in Spain, one of Woody Guthrie’s Hanukkah songs, and some festive modern takes on the joyous celebration known as the Festival of Lights. It's an eclectic mix of Hanukkah music with a little something for everyone.

Friday, December 18 | 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.  
Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

The world-renowned Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square continues its tradition of great artistry this holiday season, with touching arrangements of familiar carols, and lesser-known melodies that are fast becoming the new classics.

Saturday, December 19 | 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. 
Christmas with Morehouse and Spelman 
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

The Choirs of Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, two of the most prestigious historically black institutions in the nation come together to present a spine-tingling concert program, with a mixture of spirituals and carols.

Saturday, December 19 | 8:00 – 9:00 p.m.  
Jazz Night in America: A Holiday Celebration
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Jazz Night in America brings you holiday classics featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and special guests.

Saturday, December 19 | 9:00 – 10:00 p.m.
An NPR Jazz Piano Christmas
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

  
Join the Kennedy Center and NPR Music for this annual holiday tradition highlighting jazz pianists and their favorite seasonal music.

Saturday, December 19 | 10:00 p.m. – midnight
All This Jazz: The Holiday Show
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

 
It's yuletide jazz, and nothing but...holiday-themed modern jazz both recent and classic, both freshly recorded and historically cherished. Tune in for the 2020 All This Jazz Holiday Show! Seasonal music that also happens to swing like a gate! (And join us, likewise, for All This Jazz on the night right after Christmas -- Saturday the 26th, from 9pm to midnight -- as we prolong the Xmas Music Magic by offering an encore presentation of an ATJ Holiday Show from the past.)

Sunday, December 20  | 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. 
Handel’s Messiah at Saint John’s
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

George Frideric Handel’s Messiah traces the biblical life of Jesus from prophecy and nativity to death and resurrection. It’s become a holiday staple, but the choir at Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa offers a performance unlike any other – complete and in baroque style, with an orchestra of period instruments. Join host Jason Heilman for Handel’s Messiah at Saint John’s, with guest conductor Timothy Brown, retired Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge.

Sunday, December 20 | 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
The Rhythm Atlas Christmas Special
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Join host Denis McGilvray for a celebration of Christmas music from around the world on The Rhythm Atlas Christmas Special. You’ll hear holiday favorites spiced up with festive musical flavors from cultures all over the globe. Tune in for a cup of musical cheer! Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 21 | 9:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Winter Holidays around the World
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

Winter holidays are celebrated around the world, and host Bill McGlaughlin of “Exploring Music” will feature spirted selections of medieval Italian Christmas music, Dave Brubeck’s Mexican flavored “La Fiesta de la Posada,” Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols”, and an excerpt from the original television production of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

Monday, December 21 | 9:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Paul Winter’s Winter Solstice Celebration
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Celebrate the return of the sun with a performance recorded at the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, New York’s St John the Divine. Musicians include gospel singer Theresa Thomason, drummers from the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre and Paul Winter and his Consort.

Tuesday, December 22 | Noon – 1:00 p.m.
A Chanticleer Christmas   
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

Celebrate the season with song! Brian Newhouse hosts this one-hour program of a cappella holiday favorites, new and old, presented by Chanticleer, the superb 12-man choral ensemble known as "an orchestra of voices."

Wednesday, December 23 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
Tinsel Tales 4: So Much More NPR Christmas Favorites
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

This edition of Tinsel Tales present stories of the season that are funny, touching, insightful, irreverent, or nostalgic. Lynn Neary hosts these stories from the NPR archives that you might recognize, or might fall in love with for the first time.

Thursday, December 24 | 9:00 - 11:00 a.m.
A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols 
KWTU Classical 88.7 |Listen Live

An annual and beloved Christmas tradition, “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” is an extraordinary and memorable live service of word and music from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England. While COVID has changed the world, this tradition will continue with a world-wide broadcast albeit without the filled chapel.

Thursday, December 24 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
Tinsel Tales 3: Even More NPR Christmas Favorites
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Audie Cornish, Ken Harbaugh, Nina Totenberg and other voices from NPR's past and present tell stories of the season in this hour-long special. Baxter Black offers Christmas for Cows, and John Moe presents the Grinch’s True End.

Thursday, December 24 | Noon – 1:00 p.m.
Christmas Spirits High and Low
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

We want Christmas to be merry and bright, but sometimes the season can be challenging. Selected Shorts presents two stories that do deliver good cheer in the end, Kirsten Vangsness reads, Laurie Notaro’s “O Holy Night, or The Year I ruined Christmas,” and Christina Pickles reads Jeanette Winterson’s luminous “Spirit of Christmas.”

Thursday, December 24 | 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. 
Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir 
KWTU Classical 88.7 |Listen Live

An encore broadcast of the annual holiday performance by the Tabernacle Choir from Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Thursday, December 24 | 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Jonathan Winter’s A Christmas Carol
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Our version of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." This popular program, a public radio tradition, is hosted by NPR's Susan Stamberg. The late master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of the Charles Dickens holiday classic, using a special performing edition of the text prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. Also featuring Mimi Kennedy.

Thursday, December 24 | 10:00 p.m. – Midnight
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

An encore broadcast of the service in word and music from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge England.

Friday, December 25 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
Tinsel Tales 2: More NPR Christmas Favorites
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

NPR fills millions of homes each holiday with humor, warmth, and a host of festive voices Joy, hope, and childhood memories overflow as NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season. Highlights include Daniel Pinkwater’s “Wolf Christmas,” historian Douglas Brinkley’s “Christmas Truce” and Claudio Sanchez’s “The Night Before Christmas, Latin Style.”

Friday, December 25 | 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. 
Tinsel Tales 1: NPR Christmas Favorites
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

This program features stories from the NPR archives that touch on the meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris, Bailey White, and John Henry Faulk -- these and other NPR voices, past and present, tell stories of the season.

Friday, December 25 | 8:00 – 9:00 p.m.
2020 Hidden Sixties Holiday Special  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

Get ready for seasonal melodies, very merry ear candy, and oddball masterpieces galore as KWGS co-hosts John Wooley (from Swing on This) and Scott Gregory (from All This Jazz) present The Hidden Sixties Holiday Special! It'll be one yuletide ditty after another, from all over the sonic map: pop, rock, jazz, soul, folk, funk, easy listening, et cetera. Tune in for holiday music from the 1960s that you haven't heard since that decade...if you've heard it at all!

Thursday, December 31 | Noon – 1:00 p.m.
2020 Best of the Best Hour 1  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is back with their annual Best of the Best featuring the top audio stories of the year from your favorite public radio programs and podcasts, as well as a behind the scenes look at making beautiful stories in sound.

Thursday, December 31 | 9:00 – 11:00 p.m.
Toast of the Nation 
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 |Listen Live

An NPR tradition since the 1970s, Toast of the Nation is a great way to ring in 2021, with some of the best jazz collectives playing today.

Thursday, December 31 | 11:00 p.m. - 12:06 a.m.
All This Jazz New Year’s Party  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

All This Jazz host Scott Gregory welcomes 2021 with an hour of "live" jazz recordings from near and far, and from yesteryear and the present. Was it the worst year, like, ever? Possibly. Perhaps. In any event, we'll bid farewell to 2020 with one excellent "live" jazz recording after another! Let us celebrate with a groove!  

Friday, January 1 | 10:00 a.m. – Noon
New Year’s from Vienna 2021  
KWTU Classical 88.7 | Listen Live

The Vienna Philharmonic presents its ever-popular annual New Year's Day concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. This year’s conductor is Chicago Symphony music director Riccardo Muti who will be conducting a New Year’s Day program to an audience of millions around the world. You'll hear your favorite waltzes, polkas and more -- a festive way to start off the New Year.

Friday, January 1 | 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. 
2020 Best of the Best Hour 2  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is back with their annual Best of the Best featuring the top audio stories of the year from your favorite public radio programs and podcasts, as well as a behind the scenes look at making beautiful stories in sound.

Thursday, January 7 | Noon – 1:00 p.m.
2020 Best of the Best Hour 3  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | Listen Live

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is back with their annual Best of the Best featuring the top audio stories of the year from your favorite public radio programs and podcasts, as well as a behind the scenes look at making beautiful stories in sound.

Friday, January 8 | 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. 
2020 Best of the Best Hour 4  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 |Listen Live

The Third Coast International Audio Festival is back with their annual Best of the Best featuring the top audio stories of the year from your favorite public radio programs and podcasts, as well as a behind the scenes look at making beautiful stories in sound.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND WARM WISHES FOR A SAFE, HEALTHY NEW YEAR!
XOXOX FROM ALL OF US AT PUBLIC RADIO TULSA!

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