JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM

MONDAY, DECEMBER 13 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

Nationally-recognized composer and conductor René Clausen of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota re-imagines Christmas, taking viewers of all faiths and traditions on a musical journey. The college’s annual concert combines the pageantry of opera, the grandeur of choral orchestral masterworks, and the intimacy of delicate solos.

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DANCE IN AMERICA

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET’S NUTCRACKER

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14 @ 6:00PM & 9:00PM

San Francisco Ballet makes the beloved Nutcracker its own, resetting it during the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exhibition and introducing Dance in America viewers to the dazzling Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan. Recorded in December 2007 by KQED Public Television to help commemorate the company’s 75th anniversary, the work is choreographed by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and features sets and costumes by, respectively, Michael Yeargan and Martin Pakledinaz, both repeat Tony Award-winning designers. “Striking, elegant and beautiful,” assessed The New York Times.
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L.A. HOLIDAY CELEBRATION 2010

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13 @ 7:00PM& 10:00PM

L.A. HOLIDAY CELEBRATION 2010 is the best of the six-hour live L.A. County Holiday Celebration broadcast from Los Angeles Music Center in December 2009. The one-hour highlights version of this Emmy-nominated music and dance spectacular yields offbeat takes on holiday classics and a sampling of how world cultures mark the season.

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PETER & THE WOLF

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

Sergei Prokofiev‘s fanciful musical tale “Peter and the Wolf” is given new life in this innovative new animated interpretation, which won the 2008 Oscar® for Best Animated Short Film. “Oldies will remember the work from school music lessons,” wrote London’s OBSERVER, “while those coming to the story for the first time will be delighted with this darkly comic modernization.” Originally composed in 1936, the piece famously uses personified instruments in the orchestra to tell the story — also penned by the composer — of young Peter and his animal friends the Duck, the Bird, and even a mischievous Cat (represented by an oboe, flute, and clarinet respectively). Peter, himself represented by the string section, becomes an unsuspecting hero and outwits the Wolf (French horns), who’s intent on menacing his small Russian village —

not to mention Peter’s beloved animal friends. Conceived and directed by award-winning animator Suzie Templeton, this modern-day “Peter & the Wolf” uses stop-frame model animation, puppets, and digital photography to retell the enduring classic story, and features the Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of Mark Stephenson performing Prokofiev’s beloved score.

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THE RACE FOR ABSOLUTE ZERO

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7 @ 6:00PMM & 9:00PM

Air-conditioning, refrigeration, and superconductivity are just some of the ways technology has put cold to use. But what is cold, how do you achieve it, and how cold can it get? NOVA explores these and other facets of the frigid in two one-hour programs.

The two-part special follows the quest for cold from the unlikely father of air-conditioning, the court magician of King James I of England in the 17th century, to today’s scientists pioneering superfast computing in the quantum chill near absolute zero—the ultimate extreme of cold at minus 273.15 C (minus 460 F).
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THE ADIRONDACKS

TUESDAY, MARCH 5 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

The Adirondack Park sprawls across six million acres in upstate New York. Bigger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier and Grand Canyon National Park combined, it is by far the largest park in the lower 48 states. Yet it is the only one on the continent in which large human populations live and whose land is divided almost evenly between protected wilderness and privately owned tracts. This patchwork pattern of land ownership has created an utterly unique place.

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IN PERFORMANCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE

A BROADWAY CELEBRATION

THURSDAY, DECEMBER, 2 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

“A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House” will premiere Wednesday, October 20 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS stations nationwide. The sixty-minute television special is emceed by Nathan Lane and includes Idina Menzel, Brian d’Arcy James, Audra McDonald, Chad Kimball, Elaine Stritch, Marvin Hamlisch, Karen Olivo, Tonya Pinkins, Assata Alston and a youth ensemble from the Joy of Motion Dance Center and Duke Ellington School of the Arts, with Danielle Arci and Constantine Rousoul

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