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This holiday season, NHPR brings you special programs from around the country and around the world - both well-loved favorites and brand new.Tune in and celebrate with us!

Special Programs Celebrating Kwanzaa & New Year's Eve

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Monday, Dec. 31st

9:00 - 10:00 am:    The Exchange – People of the Year

Noon - 1:00 pm:    A Season’s Griot 2012

Hosted for the last 19 years by acclaimed storyteller Madafo Lloyd Wilson, this annual one-hour special captures the tales and traditions of African-American and African peoples.  This year's program features our youth as the special guest griots, reading their own original and traditional stories. Familiar and favorite elements of Griot will also be in place with plenty of music, and an original composition by the show's poet laureate, Beverly Fields Burnette in this, the 2012 edition of A Season's Griot.

8:00 pm - 2:00 am:   Toast of the Nation

Count down, sing along, and dance to live music all night long. Travel from coast to coast with four celebrations of midnight from time zone to time zone. It's the perfect holiday special for any New Year's event. Spirited, improvised, grooving, and swinging, with strings, horns, voices and drums, each segment is a stop in a sequence of parties, each one contributing something new to the musical feast. WBGO's Rhonda Hamilton anchors, with additional voices along the way.  This special is co-produced by WBGO Jazz 88 in Newark and NPR Music.

Tuesday, January 1st

9:00 - 10:00 am:  The Exchange: An Exit Interview With Governor John Lynch (Rebroadcast)

11:00 am - 1:00 pm:   New Years Day from Vienna

The Vienna Philharmonic presents its ever popular annual New Year's Day concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna. You'll hear your favorite waltzes, polkas and more -- a festive way to start off the New Year. Presented by NPR Music and WGBH, Boston.

3:00 - 5:00 pm:    Boston Baroque Gala First Day Concert

Why should Vienna have all the fun? Cathy Fuller is on hand to bring you a grand new Boston tradition to celebrate the New Year in style. Martin Pearlman conducts Boston Baroque's period-instrument orchestra in concertos by Corelli and Telemann, and La serva padrona, Giovanni Pergolesi's hilarious tale of an old guy and his young mistress that revolutionized the opera world. Cathy Fuller hosts, live from Sanders Theatre in Harvard Square.

8:00 - 10:00 pm:   New Years Day from Vienna (rebroadcast)

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