The Finest of Festivities.

Hark!  For it is time once again for sumptuous seasonal strains to take the sting out of the snow and complement your most cherished Christmas traditions.

Beginning on Friday the 14th December and continuing into what shall, with the help of all our good will, be the happiest of New Years, AbracaDABra is broadcasting the complete first and second series of Family Fireside Concerts.

These special features will air every week at 5pm and include Paddington Bear’s First Concert, with Stephen Fry and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Little Red Riding Hood a musical fairy-tale by Tom Smail and Emma House, told by Harry Enfield, and a specially narrated version of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition. 

Also singing through the seasonal mists and rustles will be award winning Canadian company “Classical Kids”, with their fantastic and enthralling musical stories all about the greatest composers and their most famous masterpieces.  Join Mozart on his Magnificent Voyage and Tchakovsky as he discovers America! These stories are related by fictitious characters who explore the amazing lives, places and times in which the composers lived and wrote their wonderful music.

A full schedule of the concerts is listed below, so settle down, get cozy and catch them all, only on abracaDABra!

If by chance one slips your mind. Don’t panic, curse or let you eyes fill up with water, they’ll be quite enough rain for the flowers and repeats can be heard at 11am each Saturday morning.  

Friday 14th December

• A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britton.
  Conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Friday 21st December

• Paddington Bear’s First Concert by Herbert Chappell. Story told by Stepen Fry.

Friday 28th December

• Mr. Bach Comes to Call

Friday 4th January

• Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. Narrated by Peter Schofield.

Friday 11th January

• Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery

Friday 18th January

• Little Red Riding Hood. Composed by Tom Smail. Written by Emma House.
  Story Told by Harry Enfield

Friday 25th January

• Tchaikovsky Discovers America

Friday 1st February

• Snow White by Johnathan Willcocks. Story told by Martin Muncaster.

Friday 8th February

• Beethoven Lives Upstars

Friday 15th February

• Peter and the Wolf. By Sergei Prokofiev. Narrated by Leonard Bernstein.

Friday 22nd February

• The Three Little Pigs. Adapted by Roald Dahl and set to music by Paul Patterson.
  Story told by Chris Jarvis.

Friday 1st March

• The Snowman by Howard Blake. Story told by Chris Jarvis

Friday 8th March

• Hallelujah Handel

Friday 15th March

• Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage

Friday 22nd March

• The Sleeping Beauty Composed by Tom Smail. Written by Emma House.
  Story Told by Harry Enfield.