Friday, December 14th

• 6:00 PM:  "Candles Burning Brightly" (1 hr).  Mindy Ratner and Bill Morelock of Minnesota Public Radio explore the customs and the music of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.

Wednesday, December 19th

• 12:00 N:  "The Spanish Hour: Sacred Music for Christmas from Spain and Mexico"  (1 hr).  Candice Agree hosts this program of traditional sacred music from 15th-century Valencia and 17th-century Mexico, plus selections from Pablo Casals' El Pesebre (The Nativity).
• 8:00 PM:  Houston Symphony: "A Very Merry Pops 2012" (2 hrs).  Principal Pops conductor Michael Krajewski leads the Houston Symphony and Chorus.  Joining the Orchestra will be Ashley Brown, Broadway's original Mary Poppins star, who'll have the entire family humming along as they enjoy favorite holiday songs like, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Winter Wonderland" and "I'll be Home for Christmas."  

Thursday, December 20th

• 12:00 N:  "Wind and Rhythm: Jingle Them"  (1 hr).  New arrangements for wind ensemble by Emmy-Award-winning composer Julie Giroux, combining classical pieces with familiar Christmas carols and songs, all performed by the University of North Texas Symphonic Band.

Friday, December 21st

• 12:00 N:  "Slavic Wonders – Christmas with The Rose Ensemble"  (1 hr).   A celebration of the season featuring gems from the libraries and monasteries of Krakow, Prague, and Moscow. Minnesota's Rose Ensemble has put together a program of dazzling, passionate music for Christmastime featuring an engaging and curious mixture of chant, carols, and glorious polyphony.

Saturday, December 22nd

• 10:00 AM:  "A Music Lab Christmas"  (2 hrs).  Classical 91.7 Music Lab interns Alex Doyle and Princeton Miles bring you two hours of music of the season as recorded by local Houston groups and musicians.
• 9:00 PM:  "The Christmas Revels – In Celebration of the Winter Solstice"  (2 hrs).  Drawing on live Christmas Revels productions from around the country, this program features traditional music that expresses the themes that have always been associated with Winter solstice festivals: peace, love, celebration, brotherhood, and the idea that the light will always triumph over the darkness.

Sunday, December 23rd

• 12:00 N:  "A Chanticleer Christmas" (1 hr).  Brian Newhouse hosts this one-hour 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 and contemporary carols.
• 8:00 PM:  SymphonyCast  (2 hrs).  Yannick Nezet-Seguin leads the Rotterdam  Philharmonic  Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's The  Nutcracker.

Monday, December 24th (Christmas Eve)

• 9:00 AM:  "A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols" (1 hr 30 mins).  Hosted by Michael Barone, this live stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King's College in Cambridge, England, is a true Christmas tradition. The 30-voice King's College Choir performs the legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music.
• 12:00 N:  "A Christmas Carol – A Ghost Story of Christmas"  (1 hr).  Adapted from the famed novella by Charles Dickens, this production returns to the heart of the 1843 story - mining the dark veins of what its author called "a GHOST story - for Christmas."
• 8:00 PM:  "Welcome Christmas"  (1 hr).  Bring a Torch!  Long a favorite from their appearances on A Prairie Home Companion, the Minneapolis-based chorus VocalEssence rings in the season with an all-new Welcome Christmas! which this year puts the focus on old French carols, alongside two world premieres in the annual VocalEssence/American Composers Forum Christmas carol contest. 
• 9:00 PM:  "Echoes of Christmas"  (1 hr).  Moving selections of choral classics celebrating Christmas. The Dale Warland Singers provided magical performances to listeners across the country for over 30 years and were acclaimed as America's premiere choir. Their signature holiday concert was the annual Echoes of Christmas program. Drawing upon the archive of their live performances, Dale Warland and host Brian Newhouse create a very special Christmas musical treat.

Tuesday, December 25th (Christmas Day)

• 10:00 AM:  Music of the Baroque Brass & Choral Holiday Concert 2012 (2 hrs).  Host Peter Van De Graaff guides us through music of the 16th and 17th centuries by composers such as Michael Praetorius, Thomas Ravenscroft,  J Heinrich Schütz, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Claudio Monteverdi, as well as more modern composers like Peter Cornelius, Elizabeth Poston, Stephen Paulus, and Herbert Howells among others.  Diverse in nationality, temporality and musical style, the stories the pieces in this program tell are nonetheless similar in their message.  Many are related to the Christmas narrative, while others offer a timely reminder that the wonder and awe the season inspires can last the entire year.
• 12:00 N: "A Choral Christmas with Stile Antiquo" (1 hr).  Celebrate Christmas with the sound of soaring voices. Stile Antico, the award-winning choir from London, pays a visit to St. Paul's Church on Harvard Square for a concert of radiant sacred music for the Christmas season by the most acclaimed composers of the renaissance. Hear the group's luminous blend of voices sing the intricately woven music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.
• 8:00 PM:  "St. Olaf Christmas Festival Concert"  (2 hrs).  A service in song and word that has become one of the nation's most cherished holiday celebrations. Tickets to the event, which takes place at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, are always gone months in advance. The festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians who are members of five choirs and the St. Olaf Orchestra.
• 10:00 PM:  "A Music Lab Christmas"  (2 hrs). Classical 91.7 Music Lab interns Alex Doyle and Princeton Miles bring you two hours of music of the season as recorded by local Houston groups and musicians.

Wednesday, December 26th

• 12:00 N: "A Season's Griot 2012" (1 hr).  "A Season's Griot" is public radio's only nationally-syndicated Kwanzaa program. Hosted by acclaimed storyteller Madafo Lloyd Wilson, this annual special captures the tales and traditions of African-American and African peoples.  This year's program features our youth as the special guest griots, reading their own original and traditional stories. Familiar and favorite elements of Griot will also be in place with plenty of music, and an original composition by the show's poet laureate, Beverly Fields Burnette.
• 8:00 PM:  The Houston Symphony: Handel's "Messiah" (2 hrs).  Guest conductor Christian Knapp leads the Houston Symphony, Chorus and soloists Yulia Van Doren, soprano; Malin Fritz, contralto; Sean Panikkar, tenor; and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel in Handel's famed oratorio recorded in Jones Hall in December 2011.

Tuesday, January 1st (New Year's Day)

• 10:00 AM: "New Year's Day from Vienna LIVE!"  (2 hrs).  The Vienna Philharmonic presents its ever popular annual New Year's Day concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna featuring your favorite waltzes, polkas and more &— a festive way to start off the New Year.
• 2:00 PM: "Boston Baroque Gala First Day Concert"  (2 hrs).  A Boston New Year's tradition live from Sanders Theatre in Harvard Square. Martin Pearlman leads Boston Baroque's period-instrument orchestra in concertos by Corelli and Telemann, and La serva padrona, Giovanni Pergolesi's hilarious tale of an old guy and his young mistress that revolutionized the opera world.
• 8:00 PM: "The New York Philharmonic" Winter Holiday Special (2 hrs). The world-famous orchestra presents a seasonal program that includes: Mozart's  German Dance in C, K. 605 "Sleigh Ride"; Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.1, "Winter Daydreams"; Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf;" Johan Strauss II's Overture to "Die Fledermaus."