Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir featuring Kristin Chenoweth (2019)
One in a long running series of annual Christmas specials. Each year a different celebrity is brought in to host and perform with the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra, and for the 2018 Christmas concert series, the special guest was the effervescent Kristin Chenoweth. The highlights of these shows were then released as this special in 2019.
As expected, this is a fairly polished, tastefully middle brow production complete with the usual dashes of seasonal storytelling and large-scale dance numbers. Your overall enjoyment of this particular special will probably depend on how big a fan you are of Kristin Chenoweth's whimsical nature and idiosyncratic charm, as her quirky personality is on full display here. The live audience surely loves her, which adds a nice energy to the proceedings and leads to some captivating performances.
Setlist for the special:
- Hark the Herald Angels Sing
- Gift of Christmas, Everywhere
- We Need a Little Christmas (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- O Holy Night (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- For unto Us a Child Is Born, from Messiah
- Mary Did You Know? (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- C'mon, Ring Those Bells (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- Somewhere in My Memory, from Home Alone
- Angels Among Us (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- Fill the World with Love from Goodbye Mr. Chips
- What Child is This? (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
- Angels from the Realms of Glory (Performed by Kristin Chenoweth)
An episode of Music and the Spoken Word featuring a few of the performances from the special can be found on YouTube
Overall, it's a Christmas delight enlivened by the adorkably charming Kristin Chenoweth.
Christmas At Concordia | Gather Us In, O Child of Peace (2016)
The description on the PBS webpage for this special reads as thus...
"Concordia College of Minnesota re-imagines the Christmas message with new music embracing peace and reconciliation under the artistic leadership of composer and conductor René Clausen. "
...which did give me pause as I'm not usually a fan of the results of anytime Christmas gets "re-imagined". Fortunately we aren't subjected to a drill rap version of the Messiah or a death metal Jingle Bells instead it's just a lovely straight forward choral concert. Not the most dynamic special you'll ever see, but this is the sort of show you'll be listening to rather than sitting glued to your seat in rapt attention
This 2016 special one of many produced at the school, is available online Here
