© 2024 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa
classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Holiday Specials 2018

Join Public Radio Tulsa as the holidays approach for the music and stories of the season. We have yearly staples, along with a few new broadcasts and festive local programs! Bookmark our 2018 Holiday Guide, as below, so you won't miss a special! 

Hanukkah Ligths 2018
Wednesday, December 5 | 8:00 - 9:00 p.m.        
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

A perennial NPR favorite with all new Hanukkah stories by R.L. Maizes, Lia Pripstein, Elisa Albert, and Ellen Orleans. Hosted and read by Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz.

New York Philharmonic This Week        
Sunday, December 16 | 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.     
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

This week’s program features the annual broadcast of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah”, with soloists Annette Dasch, Daniel Taylor, James Taylor, and Shenyang with the Gachinger Kantorei Stuttgart, and conductor Helmuth Rilling.

All Is Bright: Contemplative Music for Christmas 
Thursday, December 20 |  Noon - 1:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Lynne Warfel hosts an hour of gorgeous, contemplative choral music that tells the traditional Christmas story with songs about angels, the star and the manger scene. Featured artists include Cantus, Chanticleer, Cambridge Singers, Bryn Terfel, Emma Kirkby, Jessye Norman, and a variety of choirs.

Selected Shorts                                                   
Wednesday, December 19 | 8:00 - 9:00 p.m. 
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

“Tough Love for the Holiday,” guest host Robert Sean Leonard introduces our unusual holiday program, which mixes tradition with humor. For heartwarming, we’ve got a classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, “The Fir Tree.” This little tree is ambitious, but may be missing out on something. 

Our second work offers the biggest celebrity interview ever.  The lucky reporter in “Interview with God,” has a sit-down with the Almighty about life, love, war, and celebrity. And if it sounds a little like the People Magazine version, that may be the point of this gently comic piece. 

Christmas can be a little over the top, and Kurt Vonnegut pushes things right to the edge. In “A Present for Big Saint Nick,” Santa Claus is the local crime boss, lording it over his nervous employees. The author of books such as Cat’s Cradleand Slaughterhouse Fivehas fun imagining what you’d give a Santa who has an offer you can’t refuse.

Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir         
Thursday, Dec 20 |  9:00 - 10:00 p.m.  
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

The world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir 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. Audiences will enjoy a warm, nostalgic holiday celebration featuring a choir of 360 voices, a 150-piece orchestra at Temple Square, the 32-member Bells on Temple Square, along with other artists and special guests. A 600-person cast will share a stunningly beautiful mix of carols in various unique arrangements.

Tinsel Tales 1: NPR Christmas Favorites          
Friday, December 21 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
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.

Classical Tulsa            
Friday, December 21 | Noon - 1:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

As the most festive of holidays, Christmas has a musical tradition stretching back more than a thousand years. But as holiday celebrations have evolved over the years, a great deal of that music has fallen out of the repertoire. Join Classical Tulsa host Jason Heilman for a sampling of some of the Christmas classics you might not hear every year, from the renaissance to the present, plus a few well-known carols in their original versions.

Gloria in Excelsis: Christmas with the New Jersey MasterChorale 2018
Friday, December 21 |  4:00 - 5:00 p.m.  
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

The New Jersey MasterChorale, accompanied by musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Friends, with the Philadelphia Boys Choir and Chorale and mezzo soprano Deidra Palmour presents music of the season, including John Rutter’s festive Gloria, the Te Deum by William Gorton and other much-loved carols including ‘I wonder as I wander’ and the ‘Coventry Carol’.

Marketplace Special: Divided Decade        
Friday, Dec 21 |  7:00 - 8:00 p.m.    
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

 
2018 marks the 10-year anniversary of the financial crisis, and Marketplace has spent the year exploring how it changed America. “Divided Decade” draws a line from 2008 to the tumultuous political, cultural and economic climate America is experiencing today. 

Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, the “Divided Decade” special features a round-up and analysis of some of Marketplace’s best coverage on the crisis’ impact on housing, jobs, inequality and finance. It includes the historic interview with the three men tasked with saving the economy from total devastation –
Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson – and an exclusive interview with the two men whose names will forever be synonymous with the reforms meant to shore it up – former congressmen Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. 

Hidden Sixties Holiday Special                                
Friday, Dec 21 | 8:00 - 9:00 p.m.  
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Get ready for yuletide melodies, seasonal 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 merry ditty after another, from all over the sonic map: pop, rock, jazz, soul, easy listening, etc. Join us for holiday music from the '60s that you haven't heard since that decade -- if you've ever heard it at all...from Tony Bennett to Tiny Tim, and from The Soulful Strings to The Ventures!

Paul Winter’s Winter Solstice Celebration 
Friday, December 21 | 9:00 - 11:00 p.m.
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Celebrate the return of the sun with an encore performance recorded in 2014 at the world’s largest Gothic cathedral, New York’s St John the Divine. Musicians include gospel singer Theresa Thomason, multi-instrumentalist and singer Arto Tunçboyac?yan and double reed wizard Paul McCandless. Hear the American Performance Premiere of the Grammy-winning suite MIHO with The Paul Winter Consort and the thundering Cathedral Pipe Organ.

Swing On This   
Saturday, December 22 | 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE                                                  

The holiday edition of Swing On This will offer up an hour of western swing, cowboy jazz, and a surprise or two along the way. We'll have swingin' seasonal music from the '30s through contemporary times, including some new-to-the-show tunes like Hank Snow's "Reindeer Boogie," Roy Rogers & Dale Evans' "Christmas on the Plains " -- and a Yuletide glass-lifter from the beloved Michigan-based group Da Yoopers that is, believe it or not, a parody of "Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer"!

St. Olaf Christmas Festival  
Saturday, December 22 | 8:00 - 10:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

This service in song and word has become one of the nation's most cherished holiday celebrations. The festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, as well as orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians in five choirs, and the St. Olaf Orchestra. Valerie Kahler shares the sights and sounds of this choral favorite.

All This Jazz & NPR's Jazz Piano Christmas     

Saturday, December 22 | 9:00 p.m. - Midnight
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Beboppers, rejoice! It's time once again for The All This Jazz Holiday Show! Our program, as ever, will be cheerfully spinning modern jazz, both recent and classic, across a range of styles -- but in this case, it'll be music to wrap gifts by, look at lights by, sip nog by, trim trees by, etc. From Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, and Peggy Lee to Ted Rosenthal, Joshua Redman, and Kurt Elling, tune in for seasonal grooves, festive jams, and then some.

Plus, in the second hour -- beginning at 10 p.m. -- the Kennedy Center and NPR Music will co-present their annual holiday special highlighting jazz pianists and their favorite seasonal music. This year, Jason Moran will be joined by the likes of Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Booker T. Jones and James Francies. Felix Contreras hosts A Jazz Piano Christmas From NPR.

A Chanticleer  Christmas   
Sunday, December 23  | Noon - 1:00 p.m.  
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 live in concert by Chanticleer, the superb 12-man choral ensemble known as "an orchestra of voices."

New York Philharmonic This Week    
Sunday, December 23 | 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Celebrate the season with the New York Philharmonic Jukebox featuring Winter Holiday selections over the orchestra’s recorded history. Conductors ranging from Leonard Bernstein and Alan Gilbert, to Skitch Henderson, and Andre Kostelanetz lead the orchestra in a range of wintertime selections including music from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Poulenc’s Gloria in GSleigh Rideand the Children’s Prayer from Hansel und Gretel.

Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra     
Sunday, December 23 | 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Handel's much adored oratorio, Messiah, is performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Manfred Honeck. Featuring a cast of guest vocalists and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, this work is a religious story of hope, inspiration and timeless expression.

Rhythm Atlas                                                           
Sunday, December 23 | 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Tune in to The Rhythm Atlas Christmas Special, hosted by Denis McGilvray, for a celebration of Christmas music from all around the world. You’ll hear holiday favorites spiced up with festive musical flavors from the Caribbean, Africa, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Hawaii, Spain, and more. Please join us for a cup of musical cheer - Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël! Merry Christmas! 

Wind & Rhythm                                                     
Sunday, December 23 | 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Celebrate the season with classic Christmas music.  It’s the carols you love: old, new, and reimagined.  We’ll listen to a wonderful arrangement of the Wexford carol, a medley of traditional carols rearranged to be in a minor key, a mash up of carols with Mozart, and much, much more.  There is a lot to do this holiday season, but you deserve a break, too.  So grab a nice cup of hot cocoa and some Christmas cookies and join us, here at the gathering place for people who love band music, Wind & Rhythm.

Folk Salad
Sunday, December 23 | 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.    
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

A festive selection of holiday folk music. 

Hidden Sixties Holiday Special       
Sunday, December 23 | 10:00 - 11:00 p.m.    
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

An encore broadcast of the holiday special, featuring music from the 1960s that you haven't heard since then...or ever. Co-hosted by John Wooley (Swing on This) and Scott Gregory (All This Jazz).

Exploring Music  
Monday, December 24 - Friday, December 28 | 8:00 - 9:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Bill explains the essence, resonance, and imagery in each of Bach’s six cantatas comprising the Christmas Oratorio -- written for the days of the Lutheran church year -- celebrating Christmas to Epiphany with intimate arias and spirited choruses. The Oratorio was first performed in the St. Thomas and St. Nicholas churches in Leipzig, Germany (where he was the “Thomaskantor,” or cantor at St. Thomas) in December, 1734. The cantatas are performed by the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists; Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir; Venice Baroque Orchestra; and Staatskapelle Dresden, respectively.

A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols    
Monday, December  24 | 9:00 - 11:00 a.m.
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. Audiences will share in a live, world-wide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of Biblical readings, carols, and related seasonal music (anthems a cappella and with organ accompaniment, and congregational hymns), presented by one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue.

This year’s broadcast will be the last service for Stephen Cleobury, King’s College Chapel Music Director, who has conducted the chapel choir since 1982. Cleobury will retire from his King’s College post at the end of the 2019 school term.

Jonathan Winter’s A Christmas Carol   
Monday, December 24 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon    
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Our version of a “Charlie Brown Christmas”, 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.

Winter Holidays Around the World with Bill McGlaughlin
Monday, Dec 24 | Noon - 1:00 p.m.
KWTU Classical 88.7 | LISTEN LIVE

Winter holidays are celebrated around the world, and their music is wonderful to hear, regardless of which tradition you observe. Bill’s spirited selection starts in the 12th century with “Nova Stella, medieval Italian Christmas music from Saint Francis of Assisi’s staging of the nativity; jazz pianist Dave Brubeck’s classical composition “La Fiesta de la Posadaevoking a Mexican Christmas celebration; and Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.” We will enjoy this time of year in Paris with music from Debussy, and then travel to Polynesia for a traditional hymn, “Anau Oia Ea.” And then ending with an excerpt from Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” from the original television production. 

Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir                 
Monday, December 24 | 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.    
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.

Tinsel Tales 2: More NPR Christmas Favorites      
Monday, December 24 | 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.
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”.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols                  
Monday, December 24 | 10:00 p.m. - Midnight
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.

Tinsel Tales 3: Even More NPR Christmas Favorites        
Tuesday, Dec 25 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
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. Some tales are funny; some are touching; some are insightful or irreverent or nostalgic or surprising. You might recognize them from our broadcast archives — or you might fall in love with them for the first time.

Tinsel Tales 4: So Much More NPR Christmas Favorites    
Tuesday, December 25 |  7:00 - 8:00 p.m.   
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

This edition of Tinsel Tales include stories of the season told through music with interviews from the NPR Archives. Kenny Rogers, Katie Melua, Amy Grant, Sting, and Jon Batiste talk about the power of music at Christmas.   

Capitol Steps: Politics Takes A Holiday                  
Monday, December 31 | 11:00 a.m. - Noon
KWGS Public Radio 89.5 | LISTEN LIVE

Has it been a rough year? Did you buy stock in Sears? Or invest in Ivanka's clothing line? Then you may feel the need to laugh at 2018, and the Capitol Steps could not agree more. Now's your chance to finally enjoy those headlines you were too scared to read. No useful information, but the Steps will tell you what rhymes with Beto O’Rourke and Omarosa.

New Year’s from Vienna 2019        
Tuesday,  January 1 | 10:00 a.m. - Noon  
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. Dresden Staatskapelle conductor Christian Thielemann will conduct this prestigious international concert event for the first time. You'll hear your favorite waltzes, polkas and more -- a festive way to start off the New Year.

Related Content