We are billing this as a “Series,” but it is not actually what we normally think of when we hear the term, “Series”; that is to say, it is not a collection of thematically-related individual episodes that are meant to be aired in sequence. Our CHRISTMAS REVELS “Series” is, in fact, one single program that is being offered in two versions: There is the complete, full-length, two-hour edition of the show, and – for those stations that would prefer it – a half-length, one-hour version, which is identical to the second half of the two-hour edition, but which can be broadcast on its own as a stand-alone, self-contained, 59-minute holiday feature. Radio station programming decision-makers are welcome to license and air whichever version of the program best fits the needs and preferences of their station, their broadcast schedules and their audiences. The description below generally applies to both versions of THE CHRISTMAS REVELS Holiday Special; however, not all of the cultures, performers, or types, styles or genres of musical selections mentioned in this article appear in the one-hour edition of the show. Please consult the individual Program/Episode Pages for the two versions of the program for specific details as to what’s included in each of the editions of the show in the way of musical content.
“THE CHRISTMAS REVELS: IN CELEBRATION OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE 2022” is a compilation of musical excerpts, plus a few short poetry and prose readings, selected from the live Christmas/Winter Solstice Revels stage productions that are presented each December in nine cities across the United States. This joyous holiday broadcast special is available in both a two-hour and a one-hour edition.
CHRISTMAS REVELS performances have been described as entertaining collections of country, ritual and courtly dances, wassails, carols, songs and ballads, hymns and anthems, story-telling, poetry and drama. They are made up of sacred and secular folk materials, plus some composed popular and “art” music, from traditional European, Middle Eastern and American celebrations of Christmas, The Feast Days of Saints Nicholas, Lucia, Basil and Stephen, Chanukah, the Feast of Fools, Jonkonnu, New Year's, Twelfth Night/Epiphany, and other end-of-the-year festivals, along with various cultures' hereditary observances of the Winter Solstice, some elements of which date back to pre-Christian times.
The music in this year's CHRISTMAS REVELS radio broadcast is mostly traditional, and it comes from several different cultures and eras. In modern-day Portland, Oregon, we accompany a young man who makes his way through the darkened streets of the city on the longest night of the year, in a mystical search for the light. His quest is supported by music from Nineteenth-Century America: shape-note hymns from New England and a Shaker song and a Civil-War-era fiddle tune from Appalachia. Deep in the forests of late Eighteenth-Century Quebec, we observe the Winter holidays with music and customs that range in tone from the solemnity of the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve to the uninhibited and quite secular revelry of Le Jour de l’An (New Year’s Day). We stop by a four-hundred-year-old British pub owned and operated by a young African-American couple. They are totally astonished when a delegation of Revels guardians from Seventeenth-Century England magically appears in their midst and informs them that they must prove that they are qualified to have their Revelling License renewed. In the competitive test that follows, the folks from the Sixteen-Hundreds pit their Renaissance-era Christmas carols and wassails against the present-day holiday songs from Britain, Canada, and the African-American tradition offered up by the tavern owners and the bar’s regular customers. In the Celtic regions of the British Isles, a band of merry revellers share with us Irish and Welsh Christmas and New Year’s carols, and an anonymous Sixteenth-Century Scottish motet that mixes folk melodies with “learned” counterpoint, and which eventually evolved into the popular carol, “I Saw Three Ships.” At a holiday party at the Reconstruction-Era, Washington, D.C., home of Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve as a member of the U. S. Congress, his distinguished guests – both Black and White – celebrate the Winter Solstice with Yuletide parlor songs, African-American spirituals, and ballroom dancing. In early, Spanish-speaking California, we join the children as they march, singing, from door-to-door in the village, seeking shelter for the night, as we participate in Mexico’s four-hundred-year-old Yuletide ritual, Las Posadas, which re-enacts Mary and Joseph’s quest for lodging in Bethlehem on the first Christmas Eve, two thousand years ago. And we meet another historical figure, Joseph Johnson, a West African who served as a merchant seaman and an unpaid sailor with England’s Royal Navy at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. We go with “Black Joe,” as he was known in his day, as he travels the Atlantic trade routes from England to the Islands of the Caribbean and the coastal regions of the southeastern United States. There he meets the enslaved Gullah people, learns some of their heart-breakingly passionate spirituals, and witnesses the annual New Year’s procession known as Jonkonnu, which features elaborate, brightly-colored costumes, music, drumming, singing and dancing, and which has become – in the southeastern United States, at least – a commemoration of the freeing of the slaves on the First of January, 1863.
The enthusiastic performers heard in the program include the adult and children's choruses of each of the Revels companies, their professional brass quintets and instrumental folk-music groups and soloists, plus a distinguished line-up of featured guest artists, including fiddler and story-teller, Benjamin Hunter (Tacoma, WA); Early California music researcher and performer, Luis Moreno (Santa Barbara, CA); gospel and musical-theater singer and actress, Carolyn Saxon (Cambridge, MA); composer, arranger, music director and saxophonist, Edmar Colón (Cambridge, MA); folksinger and songwriter, Melanie DeMore (Oakland, CA); and early-music and traditional fiddler, Shira Kammen (Oakland, CA).
Because all of the Revels music is traditional – and accessible! – the show will fit into almost any radio format: classical, folk, AAA, world beat, eclectic or what-have-you. Last year, 167 public stations (an all-time high carriage total!) and thousands of listeners around the country enjoyed this holiday treat. We hope you'll plan to license the 2022 CHRISTMAS REVELS radio special and include it in your broadcast schedule – to the delight of your audience! – this coming Yuletide season. Hide full description
