If you have ever wondered about the backstory of holiday carols and Christmas hymns - you are not alone. America Media podcast producer Maggie Van Dorn joins the program to talk about what she learned hosting Hark!, a five-part limited-run series that explores the context and music backstory of some of the season’s most popular songs. From the pagan era, pre-Christian roots singing at Winter Solstice festivals to the 1644 English Puritan ban on “wasteful” festivities like caroling – Van Dorn describes why the sounds of the season are an entry point to exploring culture and art with curiosity.
Maggi Van Dorn. Audio producer for America Media, and host of Hark!
Our theme music is by MC Yogi
Libera me, composed by Giuseppe Verdi and performed by Arne-Christian Pelz, Margarethe Niebuhr Claudio Corbach, Georg Roither, and Stephan Buchmiller is used under a Creative Commons By Attribution license granted by the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Angels We Have Heard on High and Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy by Kevin MacLeod
All additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.
