Winter Wonderland

Music with a winter theme offers a beautiful way for us to learn about each other’s traditions. It might suggest the jingling of sleigh bells (Morley’s Snow Ride), a horse-and-carriage ride (Prokofiev’s Troika) or soaring, ethereal moods (a lovely contemporary work, Nazaykinskaya’s Winter Bells). Maybe, like the tango-tinged music of Piazzolla, it hails from Argentina, where the summer sun shines while winter chills us in the North—or, by contrast, from very far north, as in Vincent Ho’s meditative Arctic Symphony. Here is music that teaches us about vastly different personal experiences!