Our Catalog: Music for the Winter Holidays

Winter holidays are great times to reminisce about times past and to anticipate the good cheer and company to come. These two releases set a timeless mood for the holiday season with a delightful blend of tunes and tones both familiar and surprising.

Our Catalog Pages

• Appalachian Roots & Branches
• Celtic, Traditional, and World Music
• Instrumental Virtuosity
• Singer/Songwriters and Contemporary Folk
• Winter Holidays
• Compilations and Collections

More About Our Artists

Listen to "Ding! Dong! Merrily on High"
Streaming MP3

"A sweet and beautiful Christmas/Yule/Hannukah album that fits in with any number of spiritual paths; 4 and 1/2 stars"
- All Music Guide

This celebration of Christmas, Winter Solstice & Winter Holiday music belongs in every collection. Michael has collected pieces from Celtic lands ("Christmas Day in the Morning", "Gloucester Wassail", "Auld Lang Syne") to France ("Breton Carol", "Ding! Dong! Merrily On High") to the U.S. ("Children Go Where I Send Thee") tied together by his taut arrangements. Also included is an original work based on the poem by Robert Graves "To Juan: At the Winter Solstice".

Here are Christmas carols, some new, some ancient, artfully interwoven with festive and wintry traditional music from many lands. Recorded live with no overdubs, this album presents a rich tapestry of the sounds of the Celtic harp, acoustic guitar, and hammered dulcimer. There are many different textures, with each tune highlighting a subtly different way of blending the plucked, strummed, and hammered strings. There is a spectrum of different moods as well, from the eerie, modal, Gregorian sound of "O Come, Emmanuel" to the joyous French carol "Sing We Noel" and the hearty "Here We Come A-Wassailing" and "Good King Wenceslas." This recording has an inner coherence that goes beyond its Christmas theme. These artists communicate from years of performing together; and the listener is gently drawn into a magical world of deft interplay and musical synergy.