Christmas With The Tabernacle Choir

Arts and Music Series / 4 Seasons

The treasured “Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir” special returns to PBS for the 21st year. Broadway star Michael Maliakel and beloved British actress Lesley Nicol (from Downton Abbey, the MASTERPIECE TV series) join the iconic Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in a stunning 90-minute theatrical program, illustrating that the real meaning of Christmas is opening our hearts to all.

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And Then Shall Your Light Break Forth, from 'Elijah'

3m 37s / TV-PG

Felix Mendelssohn began plans to write an oratorio on the subject of the Old Testament prophet Elijah in 1837. This final chorus, "And Then Shall Your Light Break Forth," from Elijah emphasizes the triumph of the faithful, setting scriptural words drawn from Isaiah and the Psalms of David.

Season of Light: The Preview

2m / TV-PG

The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square join with award winning artists Lea Salonga and Sir David Suchet for Season of Light: Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir, a festive and uplifting Christmas special. Filmed with a live audience, this concert will illuminate your holiday experience with timeless carols, treasured Christmas songs and a story of heroic service.

When the Shepherds Saw the Light

3m 39s / TV-PG

Watch the spectacular opening to "Season of Light: Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir." This processional, "When the Shepherds Saw the Light" is based on an old Provençal noël, “Allons bergers, allons, tous.” In this new arrangement by Mack Wilberg, David Warner’s lyrics retain the original noël’s pastoral themes while expounding on the narrative and emotional power of all Christmas stories.

Preview

1m 54s

Stars Megan Hilty and Neal McDonough join The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square to celebrate the holidays with a return to the Emerald Isle. McDonough and Hilty, who each share Irish heritage and traditions, deliver a deeply personal program that weaves together well-known holiday tunes, classic Christmas carols and hymns with some traditional Irish musical numbers.

Making A Celtic Christmas: Behind-The-Scenes Insights

4m 47s

Producing a Christmas concert with a scope as broad as ’Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir’ is quite a feat. How do you coordinate that pageantry, all those lights, the stage sets, the Choir, the guests artists and 400 plus musicians? Go behind the scenes, and learn how ‘A Celtic Christmas’ came together.

On This Day, Earth Shall Ring ("Personent hodie")

5m 48s / TV-PG

'On This Day, Earth Shall Ring', or "Personent hodie" in the original Latin, was translated into English by Jane M. Joseph, an early 20th century English composer and colleague of Gustav Holst. Mack Wilberg has masterfully arranged it for the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra as a dramatic processional that preserves the renaissance reverence of the original.

The Holly and the Ivy

3m 3s

The melody for this carol is an old English folk song, and the lyrics date to at least the early 18th century. But the sacred symbolism of holly and ivy extends even further back into medieval England. Holly and ivy have been customary Christmas decorations since the late medieval period. Here, Megan Hilty joins The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra to sing the popular carol.

Sussex Carol

2m 48s

Mack Wilberg wrote an arrangement of 'Sussex Carol' in 2008 for The Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert with The King’s Singers. This joyful performance, complete with bell ringers, is an adaptation of that earlier arrangement. The folk melody originally came from the town of Monk’s Gate, Sussex, and the lyrics from a 1684 publication by Irish bishop Luke Wadding.

Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head

3m 54s

Not widely known today, 'Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head' was an Appalachian Christmas carol, collected from central Kentucky in the early 20th century. It began to gain an audience through solo and choral arrangements during the American folk revival of the 1950s and -60s. Mack Wilberg fashioned his a cappella arrangement of this soothing folk carol especially for this concert.

Masters in This Hall

3m 29s

Bell ringers and trumpeters add to his spirited arrangement of ‘Masters in This Hall’, performed by The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra. The melody for this carol was first in the 1706 opera Alcyone by the French composer Marin Marais. It was in England in 1860 that the tune was matched with new lyrics by the young designer and architect, William Morris.

A Celtic Christmas: Irish Jig on ‘In dulci jubilo’

2m 40s

Richard Elliott’s spectacular organ solos have delighted audiences at The Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concerts for many years. This year, with a focus on Celtic Christmas traditions, Elliott took the modal, medieval tune of the ancient chant-based carol ‘In dulci jubilo’ and turned it into an Irish jig.

Three Irish Christmas Traditions

10m 9s

Watch as award-winning actor Neal McDonough tells the story of three Irish traditions, and Broadway star Megan Hilty joins the Choir and Orchestra in tenderly performing a new Christmas carol arranged by Mack Wilberg, and based on ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, a popular Irish folk song with strong roots in Scottish traditions.

O Holy Night

4m 51s

Watch the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform ‘O Holy Night’. It’s one of the most dramatically beautiful Christmas carols ever penned but is performed only rarely because of the melody’s extended range. This resplendent arrangement by Mack Wilberg, originally written especially for The Tabernacle Choir and The King’s Singers, was published in 2009.

The Christmas Story: Luke 2

1m 24s

Each year, the Choir’s Christmas concert includes the retelling of the Christmas story from the Bible. Here, it is given with deep feeling and emotion by Neal McDonough, who counts his Catholic faith and his relationship with God among his most prized possessions. The underscoring for the reading is created new each year by Mack Wilberg.

Angels from the Realms of Glory

5m 57s

‘Angels from the Realms of Glory’ has become the signature finale at The Tabernacle Choir & Orchestra’s annual Christmas concerts. Watch Mack Wilberg’s stirring arrangement, which begins with a featured solo by Tony® Award-nominated performer Megan Hilty. The tune for this popular Christmas song comes from the 18th-century French carol ‘Les Anges dans nos Campagnes’.

Backstage With Neal McDonough

4m 27s

Neal McDonough is a multi-talented and award-winning actor who has been seen in over 100 films and nearly one thousand hours of major television dramas. Go backstage with Neal and hear, in his own words, about his experience as this year’s guest artist with ‘Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir’.

Meet Megan Hilty

3m 43s

Go behind the scenes of Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir with guest artist Megan Hilty. A Tony Award nominee, she is a dynamic performer both on stage and on screen. Hear why she thinks this concert is the ultimate Christmas Concert, and what was so magical to her about being a part of ‘Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir’.

Give Glory to His Honored Name (from Athalia)

2m 7s

Watch The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra perform this moving rendition of ‘Give Glory to His Honored Name’. French author Jean Racine produced a play on the story of Athaliah in 1691, and that play formed the basis of the 1733 oratorio by George Frideric Handel, to a libretto by Samuel Humphreys.

Joy To The World

2m 25s

Isaac Watts’s 1719 paraphrase of Psalm 98, set to music by Lowell Mason, is now one of the most popular Christmas hymns in North America. In this high-spirited arrangement by Mack Wilberg, continuous running passagework in the orchestra and the addition of bells and herald-trumpet fanfares illustrate the excitement of the Christmas season.

Backstage with Brian Stokes Mitchell

5m 49s

Beloved guest artist, Brian Stokes Mitchell takes us on an exciting and intimate journey backstage during the making of “20 Years of Christmas with The Tabernacle Choir,” a show he hosts. Mitchell describes how it feels to perform in the magnificent space, (with and without an audience). He also shares a personal pandemic story and reflects on the true meaning of Christmas.

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