A Southern Celtic Christmas

Credit APT

Celebrate the high spirits and mystical beauty of Celtic and Appalachian Christmas traditions through music, dance, poetry and song.

Produced on stage at Emory University, A Southern Celtic Christmas features performances by three Grammy winners: "First Lady of Celtic Song" Moya Brennan, Celtic and bluegrass banjo virtuoso Alison Brown, and Riverdance composer Bill Whelan. The program, airing Monday, December 25, 2017 at 4 p.m. on WXXI-TV, also features the soulful duo Rising Appalachia percussionist Joe Craven, Irish balladeer John Doyle, uilleann piper John Maschinot, The Buddy O'Reilly Band, the Rosin Sisters and other top traditional musicians from the Southeast. James Flannery, director of the W.B. Yeats Foundation and a noted interpreter of Irish/Southern culture, hosts this entertaining and inspiring holiday production. Amid old ruins in Ireland, Flannery interviews the late Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, who talks about the folk influences behind his poem, "St. Kevin and the Blackbird."