Alycia Baumgardner Vs. Christina Linardatou

Building her rise to fame in 2012, Christina Perri has put together a collection of classic Christmas tunes, pairs an all-new seasonal staple, "Something About December" alongside unique renditions of such Yuletide favorites as The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling" and Charles Brown's "Please Come Home For Christmas". Produced by multiple Grammy Award winner David Hodges (Evanescence, Kelly Clarkson), the 6-track collection is further highlighted by a new take on the John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band classic, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", featuring choral contributions from such diverse artists as Michelle Branch, LP, Bushwalla, and Boys Like Girls' Martin Johnson.

With L’Amore innamorato – ‘Love in love’ – Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata return to their own first great love, Italian music of the 17th century, and specifically to composer Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676). A luminary of the glamorous and innovative world of Venetian opera, Cavalli was a protégé of Claudio Monteverdi – the composer around whom L’Arpeggiata built Il teatro d’amore, the ensemble’s first Warner Classics album, which was released in early 2009. “Cavalli’s music excites my passions”, says Christina Pluhar. He composed some 40 operas, some of which have achieved new currency since the 1960s, such as La Calisto, Il Giasone, L’Egisto and L’Ormindo and La Didone. Arias and instrumental numbers from six of his operas feature in L’Amore innamorato. The instrumentalists of L’Arpeggiata are joined for the album – which also includes pieces by two of Cavalli’s contemporaries, Girolamo Kapsperger and Andrea Falconieri – by two sopranos, the Catalan Núria Rial and the Czech Hana Blažíková.

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (1932-2016) was one of the most striking composers from northern Europe over the past half century. With his fearlessness, individuality and meticulous craftsmanship, he inspired a generation of composers in Denmark.One of them was Allan Gravgaard Madsen (b. 1984), whose double concerto Nachtmusik is released on Friday 13 December on a new recording, together with Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's concerto For Violin and Orchestra – both recorded by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and conductors Ryan Bancroft (Nachtmusik) and Nicholas Collon (For Violin and Orchestra).

For years, they called her Norway’s best-kept secret. She hit the stage each night in a blur of blonde hair, gutsy vocals and stinger riffs, converting the crowd with charisma worthy of the man tattooed on her left shoulder (Jimi Hendrix). Night after night, club after club, always the same question. Who’s that girl…?

She's perhaps Germany's most wonderful insider tip. Almost 40 years have passed since Christina Lux and Oliver George played together in a rock band in Kassel. Those were Christina Lux's first steps on stage. After a year with many concerts, the voice of the then 18-year-old did not keep up and she had to take a break. "That was hard for me because I didn't know if I could fix it." It got better again, but she didn't want to go back to a rock band. In 1986 she got in touch with Edo & Vilko Zanki and recorded some songs together with Oliver George. They put them on a music cassette and visited the Zankis in their studio. "I only really felt how much the influence of Edo Zanki's way of singing influenced me when I started writing lyrics in German in 2006. A master."

Christina Watson is a versatile vocalist and vocal coach based in Nashville, Tennessee. She performs a mix of genres, but she has always been enamored by America's only true art form: jazz. She brings her quartet of world-class musicians to events in Nashville and beyond.