Winter.
Holiday season.
Grey skies, maybe snow or rain.
A lot to do as the year draws to a close.
Maybe you find this part of the year too busy, too cold, or too isolating.
Perhaps, on the other hand, you greet this time of year with anticipation and joy.
Maybe there is time and place for a bit of all these things.
Whatever holiday you do or do not mark this time of year, time to pause, to reframe, to have a bit of quiet are all good things to have in your toolkit of perspectives.
There is a lot of great music to remind you about and help you get to those things.
In her song Fine Winter’s Night, Shannon Heaton invites you to consider the cold outside and the fact that that cold draws you to welcome and warmth within. She points out that it’s good to take time to consider the brilliant stars in that cold night sky before heading toward that warmth and light, too.
Shannon wrote the song, sings lead, and plays flute on it; her husband and musical partner Matt Heaton is on backing voice and guitar. They are based in the Boston area.
Patty Loveless comes from Kentucky. She brings in landscape, memories, and music to brighten the season in her song Bluegrass, White Snow. It’s a short trip to mountain memories and music with great lead and harmony singing.
The milagro, the miracle, that Tish Hinojosa sings of in her song is hope. She also asks for love and peace, and that along the way we talk from the heart with each other. Tish grew up in Texas speaking both English and Spanish, so it is natural for her to use both in her song. It’s a lively one with wisdom within, too.
The members of Irish-American band Cherish the Ladies offer a healing and hopeful take on a snowy Christmas eve time with the song All the Valley Down. That’s founding member of Cherish, Joanie Madden, featured on flute, and guest singer Hannah Rarity, who comes from Scotland, on lead vocal.
Hanneke Cassel’s main instrument is the fiddle. She is a respected performer, composer, and educator based in the Boston area. She often draws on Scottish and Cape Breton styles in her work; you’ll hear a hint of that as she pairs her take on the Advent hymn O Come Emmanuel with a tune she composed called Star of Wonder.
Kathy Mattea was thinking about night sky stillness and the story of Christmas when she chose to sing Straw Against the Chill. Kathy, who comes from West Virginia, is based in Nashville. Bob Franke wrote the song, which holds change, winter, and hope within, as well.
Several years back, Cara Dillon got to thinking that that she was seeing little of the substance of Christmas in what she encountered during the winter season. She and her musical partner and husband Sam Lakeman decided to make an album to offer a reflective take on the season. Originals and traditional songs both find their place drawing especially on Irish music, as Cara comes from County Derry in Northern Ireland. Here is their take on The Wexford Carol.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, there is peace, connection, reflection, and joy in the stories these musicians have chosen to tell through these songs. May all that be good companions to you this season.
Thank you for staying with us through this journey. Below, you'll find a link that will take you to an article which has a bit more backstory on the series. It also has links to a number of the stories, including ones called Listening for Community, Music for Winter's Changes, and The Geography of Hope.
Kerry Dexter is Music Editor at Wandering Educators.
You may find more of Kerry's work in National Geographic Traveler, Strings, Perceptive Travel, Journey to Scotland, Irish Fireside, and other places, as well as at her own site, Music Road. You can also read her work at Along the Music Road on Substack.