WHRO Public Media has the soundtrack for your holiday! Below is the lineup of holiday programs on WHRO FM.

Friday, December 17:

Noon – Show Tune Cafe: Holiday Edition
A festive hour of classic Broadway tunes to put a smile on your face and get you in the holiday spirit.

9 PM – A Soulful Christmas from American Public Media
A Soulful Christmas is an uplifting, relevant display of Black music in classical, gospel, spiritual, and jazz-inspired styles, celebrating Black classical music and choral traditions.

Saturday, December 18:

6 AM – Harmonia: The Christmas Oratorio Quilt
This week on Harmonia, as the winter nights get colder, we’ll keep warm with an “oratorio quilt!” and weave together baroque music for the season from France, Germany, and Italy—plus medieval Christmas music performed by Gothic Voices.

7 AM-Noon – Holiday Car Tunes

1-3 PM – The Metropolitan Opera presents Mozart’s The Magic Flute
The Metropolitan Opera’s live Saturday matinee radio broadcasts continue with a treat for the holiday season: Mozart’s The Magic Flute. This classic operatic fairy tale, sung in English and under two hours long, is ideal for listeners of all ages. Maestro Jane Glover leads an extraordinary cast headed by Matthew Polenzani and Hera Hyesang Park as Tamino and Pamina, a prince and princess on a journey to love and light; Rolando Villazón in a noteworthy network role debut as the birdcatcher Papageno; Morris Robinson as the high priest Sarastro; and Kathryn Lewek as the fierce Queen of the Night.

3-6 PM – Holiday Intermezzo

8-11 PM – This Just In: Holiday Edition
Enjoy new releases for the holiday season, featuring the Boston Camerata with A Medieval Christmas, two Latvian works for Christmas including the Christmas Song Cycle by Martins Brauns and the Seven “O” Antiphons by Andris Sejans, and Benedict Sheehans’ setting of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

11 PM – Harmonia: The Christmas Oratorio Quilt

Sunday, December 19:

7 AM-Noon – Holiday Musical Brunch

Noon-1pm – With Heart and Voice: A Christmas Celebration
As we prepare for the eve of Christmas, we’ll begin the festivities with music to celebrate the arrival of the Christ Child on this edition of With Heart and Voice. Tune in as Peter DuBois shares sacred choral and organ treasures of the season.

3-4 PM – From the Parlor: Christmas Edition

4-7 PM – Holiday Sunday Classics

7-8 PM – Classical Guitar Alive: Christmas Special
This week’s program features music for Christmas and interviews with American guitarist-composer Mark Cruz and Canadian guitarist Liona Boyd.

8-10 PM – Pipedreams: Christmas Special
Enjoy a program of “International Holiday Delights” with composers and instruments from many lands we celebrate the Nativity.

10 PM-Midnight – Holiday Evening Classics

Monday, December 20:

Noon – Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square from American Public Media
The sounds of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square floated into many homes during the holidays in the '60s & '70s on Goodyear and Firestone albums, bringing lush renditions of favorite Christmas carols. Those warm memories and feelings come right back again in this holiday special. The choir continues its tradition of great artistry with touching arrangements of familiar carols, and surprises with lesser-known melodies that are fast becoming the new classics.

9 PM – Christmas with Madrigalia from WXXI Public Broadcasting
Christmas with Madrigalia celebrates the excitement and joy of the holiday season with traditional carols and anthems from the Medieval era through the 21st century. This one-hour program from the chamber choir Madrigalia, recorded live in concert, features beautiful music by Michael Praetorius, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Ola Gjeilo, Alice Parker, and Craig Hella Johnson, along with a number of director Cary Ratcliff’s own arrangements.

Tuesday, December 21:

Noon – Local WHRO-FM Holiday Programming: Winter Solstice Celebration

9 PM – The Christmas Revels: In Celebration of the Winter Solstice 2021
A celebration of the winter holidays – Christmas, the Solstice, Chanukah, Jonkonnu, New Year’s and Twelfth Night/Epiphany – featuring traditional carols, anthems, wassails, hymns, children’s game-songs, and folk dance-tunes excerpted from live Christmas Revels stage productions presented around the country.

Wednesday, December 22:

Noon – Gaudete! Early Music for the Christmas Season from The WFMT Radio Network
Sara Schneider, producer and host of Early Music Now, presents Gaudete! Early Music for the Christmas Season, with joyful and contemplative sounds of the season. We’ll hear Byzantine chant by Kassiani, and selections from Missa Puer natus est nobis by Thomas Tallis, plus hymns and motets from Spain, Germany, and France. Our performers include The Cardinall’s Musick, Theatre of Voices, Cappella Romana, and Oltremontano.

9 PM – A Local Touch: Holiday Edition
Raymond Jones presents holiday music with a Virginia connection, featuring recordings from the Virginia Symphony, Virginia Chorale, Virginia Handbell Consort, Virginia Choral Society, Adagio Trio, and more.

Thursday, December 23:

Noon – Welcome Christmas! from American Public Media
Welcome Christmas is a perennial Christmas favorite from VocalEssence, one of the world’s premiere choral groups, conducted by Philip Brunelle. This program presents an hour of traditional carols and new discoveries, including the world premiere of two carols from the annual Christmas Carol Contest.

9 PM – An Elizabethan Christmas with the Rose Ensemble
Grand candlelit halls, lavish feasts, and stately dances: escape to the regal elegance of the Elizabethan era. The time and culture of Elizabeth I also contained tension and intrigue; dark and light. And it’s all evident in the music of their Christmas celebrations. The Rose Ensemble captures all of that in their popular holiday concert, as they reawaken the ancient with An Elizabethan Christmas.

Friday, December 24: Christmas Eve

5-10 AM – Local WHRO-FM Holiday Programming

10 AM-Noon – A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (Live Broadcast)
An annual and beloved Christmas tradition, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is an extraordinary and memorable service of word and music from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England. Share in this live, world-wide Christmas Eve broadcast of a service of Biblical readings, carols, and related seasonal music, presented by one of the world’s foremost choirs of men and boys and performed in an acoustically and architecturally renowned venue.

Noon – Show Tune Cafe: Christmas Eve Special
Enjoy the best of Broadway’s Christmas repertoire, plus selections from movie musicals, and melodies sung by legendary musical theatre performers.

1-3 PM – Local WHRO-FM Holiday Programming

3 PM – Handel’s Messiah performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra

4-7 PM – Local WHRO-FM Holiday Programming

7-9 PM – St. Olaf Christmas Festival from American Public Media
F. Melius Christiansen started the Christmas Festival in 1911 at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota as a simple service in word and song for students, faculty, friends and family. In the 109 years since, it has grown to include more than 500 student musicians who share their gifts with more than 12,000 audience members at the four live concerts – tickets for which always sell out months in advance. Join listeners across the country and around the world to participate in one of the nation’s most treasured holiday celebrations. Programming includes sacred choral and instrumental music from many traditions: beloved hymns, classical masterworks, folk songs from around the world, and African-American spirituals.

9 PM – All is Bright: Contemplative Music for Christmas from American Public Media
Hosted by Lynne Warfel, All Is Bright presents an hour of gorgeous, contemplative music related to the Christmas season and its symbolism. This program uses sacred choral music grouped in a way to tell the traditional Christmas story by way of songs about angels, the star, and the manger scene. Featured artists include the Cambridge Singers, Cantus, and Chanticleer.

10 PM - midnight – Christmas Eve Classics with Raymond Jones

Saturday, December 25: Christmas Day

As always, WHRO-FM will offer joyous and beautiful music for your celebrations throughout the day.

Here are some highlights:

6 AM – Harmonia: Holiday Triple Spin
Holidays are a great time for music! And this week on Harmonia, we’re going to take a spin through three favorite tunes and enjoy how early composers and modern performers make them memorable. Warm up your ears for some holiday cheer and join us!

7 AM – Welcome Christmas!

9-11 AM – St. Olaf Christmas Festival

Noon – Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square

1 PM – The Metropolitan Opera presents a celebration of Verdi’s Aida at the Met
In honor of the 150 anniversary of Verdi’s Aida (which premiered on December 24, 1871) and the 90th anniversary of Met radio broadcasts (which began on December 25, 1931), we present highlights from great Met performances of Aida. Each decade of broadcasts will be represented in this special program of excerpts, featuring a range of extraordinary artists from legendary singers of the past to current stars. They will include Zinka Milanov, Anna Netrebko, Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Anita Rachvelishvili, Dolora Zajick, Carlo Bergonzi, Franco Corelli, Giovanni Martinelli, Robert Merrill, and others.

4-6 PM – Music of the Baroque: Brass and Choral Holiday Concert from The WFMT Radio Network
Acclaimed early music ensemble Music of the Baroque presents a holiday concert featuring works of composers like Samuel Scheidt, Giovanni Gabrieli, William Billings, Claudio Monteverdi, and many more. Drawn from diverse cultures and various points in history, conductor William Jon Gray has assembled a program highlighting multifarious holiday traditions around a single unifying principle: whether in the twelfth or nineteenth centuries, in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, the Netherlands, or Spain, music gives voice to the spirit of the season.

6-8 PM – Performance Today: Christmas Special

8-11 PM – This Just In: Christmas Edition
To round out your holiday, tune in for a new release from the Albion label and the Vaughan Williams Society: An Oxford Christmas with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Also, from Alto Records, we’ll hear a reissue of Christmas with The Deller Consort.

11 PM – Harmonia: Holiday Triple Spin

Friday, December 31: New Year’s Eve

Noon – Festive Show Tune Cafe

9 PM-12 AM: New Year’s Eve Classics
Ring in 2022 with a special edition of Evening Classics, featuring our annual broadcast of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus with a gala sequence of opera’s greatest stars and the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Chorus.

Saturday, January 1: New Year’s Day

11 AM-1 PM – New Year's Day From Vienna 2022 (Live Broadcast)
The ever popular annual New Year’s Day Concert will be performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Hosted by WBUR's Lisa Mullins.

*program times and details may be subject to change