welcome to present up your program for the performing arts crescendo is a production of international artists in new york welcome to a crescendo we had such a wonderful response from we have harper tough show on our program a few months ago but we couldn't let it go by without having him here to warm the season we cited christmas for you harper thank you for being here it's a pleasure thank you in the christian calendar the four weeks preceding christmas are known as advent which is a time of perforation for christmas one of my favorites and bit him this is a tune that was written in the sixteenth century by a german fellow named frighting house and it's called mark he took flung wide the door it's an exciting way of saying let's get if you ever have the chance to spend part of winter's nights out in its players take here's my experience i lived for several years at a place called holden village in the north cascade mountains here in washington state it's a very remote retreat center year round population of about eighty people we didn't have daily mail we didn't have any telephones we didn't have any computers we didn't have any commerce it was not possible to drive there you would drive to land and get on a boat and be on the boat for a few hours and get off in the middle of nowhere the school bus would come eat you and take you ten miles back up into the mountains and that's where holding villages it's surrounded by the one at you national forest it was a very wonderful experience to live there in the winter time to be able to put on that cross country skis on the back porch and just shuffle into the wilderness in five minutes i could be out of sight and out of hearing distance of any other person close to this close to the winter solstice one year i went out skiing by myself at night it was a very still night there was a full moon and the snow had fallen thickly just the night before when i got out into the middle of nowhere i stopped and listened and once i could get past hearing my own heartbeat and hearing my own breathing i realized all the things i could not hear i couldn't hear engines i couldn't hear the sound of people i couldn't hear airplanes i couldn't hear any of the things that we associate with our modern civilization it was a marvelous magical experience where i could hear was the snow shifting on every green back so i could hear little tiny motions of ground squirrels fighting the last notes before winter actually it i could hear my thoughts i could hear what i thought actually was the here in the united states we're very familiar with christmas carols that originated here in america and also fairly familiar with english care also some french some german but christmas is celebrated in other cultures as well here's  one of the wonderful christmas time traditions in scandinavia is the festival of st lucie the thirteenth of december sometime the cea was a fourth century sicilian saint who died in march or for her christian faith and her cult was very active within about one hundred years of project eventually news of her miracles and her life traveled to scandinavia whence convey via braised christianity around the year one it became the patron saint of sweden and her festival is often celebrated in swedish households by having the youngest daughter wear crowder of lit candles on her head and white robe and she goes around and brings coffee and a certain kind of pastry to see a coffee and to the adults in the other members of the household very early in the morning on december thirteenth it's called something  traditional song that is sung and swedish as well as you know the same tune with other similar words in her region in danish and it's a wonderful wonderful way of associating st lucie with bringing back the light in the dark north or countries now interestingly the song itself comes from naples where it's its original text describes some to the sea a quarter of the city like we would say st andrews gate to our capit here's a couple of christmas carol for you know the song very cold hot which in english we often see associated with the text cold december flies away i particularly like this one having grown up in alaska by the time late spring comes around you're really ready for that snow to be gone really nice to see a couple of green things maybe some crocus is starting to poke up and this is the kind of tonight reminds me of that even though interior is still three months cold december flies away wants it's one of those things that happens and just work all complete i haven't done too much with it other than the choral range not until i heard harker play and i knew then thank you for joining us on