Good morning!
This weekend, I was on a video call with my family, who asked, "What time does the sun set today?"
"Probably 4:30," I said, and then checked my weather app, only to discover that the sun would actually set at 4:12pm. This is the part of winter I like the least — each day a little darker than the one that came before. It's no wonder, then, that so many of our winter holidays are celebrations of light. It's even less of a wonder that those celebrations, lit by flickering candles or brightly-colored bulbs, are also times of gathering and community, and most importantly for this newsletter, of song.
So many of my glowing holiday memories center around music: caroling parties, with friends and family crowded around a piano; outings to the Holiday Pops, or to A Christmas Celtic Sojourn; evenings curled up at home with a good book and a mug of something warm, a Nat King Cole CD playing in the other room. In these dark and cold midwinter days, music keeps us warm — or, at risk of sounding corny as all get-out, at least it warms our hearts.
With that in mind, it's high time to turn on some holiday tunes! You can find all of our holiday music programming here, including our three 24/7 holiday music streams: Heavenly Holiday Classics, Perfect Holiday Party Soundtrack, and Ultimate Holiday Classical Mix. A neat trick: you can play the holiday streams on your smart speaker, too! Here's how.
What else is happening at CRB? Read on!
EVENTS
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
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In an encore broadcast from the 2023 Tanglewood season, Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Wynton Marsalis's "Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah," Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, and pianist Daniil Trifonov joins for Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3.
WCRB IN CONCERT
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On WCRB In Concert with Blue Heron, the renowned vocal ensemble continues its multi-year exploration of music by rarely heard 15th-century master Johannes Ockeghem.
THE BACH HOUR
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On The Bach Hour, John Eliot Gardiner leads the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in the composer's musical confrontation with the capriciousness of life.
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On The Bach Hour, the composer's "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" charts a course from dark sorrow to resolute peace in a performance by Collegium Vocale of Ghent and their director, Philippe Herreweghe.
BLOG
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Pianist Sharon Su fell in love with a Florence Price composition, and then received an error-riddled version of the sheet music.
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Our April playlist showers us with jazz, post-punk, glam rock, and K-pop, then some fresh classical favorites and old standbys bring it all home.
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The words of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and theoretical physicist Richard Feynman introduce a secular twist to the choral mass format in David Shapiro’s Sumptuous Planet Mass, brought to life by the Philadelphia-based choral ensemble The Crossing.
ONE LAST THING
The Note is always free, but this week, it's even freer — we're sharing it online so you can share it with your friends! If you've read this far, first of all, thank you; second of all, share this link on social media so your friends know they can subscribe here.
Have a great week! I'll talk to you soon.
Kendall Todd