The Holiday Music Fest 2018

Well, it's now officially December, and that means the long-anticipated start of this year's Holiday Music Fest.  Over the next month we'll have an extensive menagerie every day of what should mostly be lesser-known material for the season -- offbeat renditions of traditional songs, some videos, a bit of humor, and a wide range of odds-and-ends.  But a lot of it all.

We'll start it off with something that isn't particularly unknown, given that it's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  But what the heck, it's a great, and what's uncommon is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus rarely put out full videos of their performances.  This one explains at the beginning why they did so with this, and it was made only a few years ago under the baton of Riccardo Muti.

The whole thing is glorious, but If you only want to celebrate the season with the Ode to Joy section, fair enough, and that comes in at the 52:12 mark, so you can just jump directly to it.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to trundle off and watch the Big Ten Championship Game starting in two minutes, played between #6-ranked Ohio State and the drastic underdog, but beloved Northwestern, which is ranked #20.  Yes, they have a chance.  And yes, Ohio State should crush them.  But we can hope.  And mainly, it's just great seeing them in the championship game -- for the first time.

Ode to Joy, indeed...