- Tonight on our place, our time, the holiday season in Hampton Roads, in pictures and music and in art.

The Virginia Coral Society will sing songs and carols of the season.

We'll celebrate the tradition and art of nutcrackers and we'll pay homage to a masterpiece of religious art.

And here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- A happy holiday season to you.

It's a pleasure to be with you during this holy time.

People in Hampton Roads have their own customs and traditions for this holiday season.

And W's elves and helpers have been out capturing the sights and sounds.

We are going to celebrate the holiday season in Hampton Roads and what better way to begin than with music?

The Virginia Choral Society has been celebrating this happy season for 58 years and the chorus will ring in our celebration with a song based on an old French tune called Ding Dong.

Merrily on high - You Back, - We'll return to the beautiful singing of the Virginia Choral Society and music for this holiday season in just a moment.

But first I wanted to talk with the Virginia Choral Society's conductor, Gary Lewis, and we very much want you to meet him.

Thanks for being with us to make this program so special.

Gary, I know that you're very busy this time of year.

- It's a very busy time, but it's a joy to come over and it's a good, it's good to see you again.

We both have such busy schedules.

- I know, I know.

Your whole life has really been wrapped up in choral music, I think since, certainly since I've first known you.

You were in high school singing in choruses.

You were at Northwestern singing with Margaret Hillis and many other things.

You were in the army and came here with the what?

The Continental Army Band?

- I think that's right.

And doing choral work.

I had been in the fifth Army band in Chicago and the Continental Army Band in, in Fort Monroe, Virginia.

And there are, there were choruses connected with each one of those bands and that was my place.

- You said before we, as we were listening to music and just sitting around sort of chatting before we started talking to the audience as it were, that you didn't want to hear the first Noel anymore.

You are ready to go on to the 4th of July.

You certainly don't, don't evidence that at all in the programming.

And I'm wondering how you decide which Christmas music you're going to program in varied kind of concerts and for us today.

'cause it is such a special part of our holiday season.

- Well, I guess I really should qualify a statement like that.

I say that with a a little bit of a wink in my eye I think because - Absolutely, - I love all the Christmas carols, I think just as much as everyone else does.

When you sing five verses of a carol five nights in a row, you wanna start hearing some other things.

And I find that there are a lot of Christmas music, there's a lot of Christmas music that has become dear to the hearts of people, of other nationalities and so on that we begin to try to tie in so that we can add to our repertoire, so to speak, and don't do quite as much repetition.

And I find that we get a more of a universal sense of Christmas.

I've also found too that after a while, the people who do the most with Christmasy things, who do the most singing or who do the most working in the stores at Christmas and all of that sort of thing, after a while there's a tendency to get a little bit burned out and burning out I think is a chance for you to draw back away and ask yourself, what is Christmas really about?

And then when you come back to the Carols, you really approach them with a new freshness and a, a very genuine sense of what, what Christmas really is all about.

- I've wondered about the thinking about talking to you today and listening to the choral society about the peel of Christmas music and how all the great Christmas music is sung music as opposed to being orchestral or something of that sort and about our need to be involved.

I think of something in this holiday season and maybe that accounts for the popularity of the Messiah sing-alongs.

I think you've done some of that as well.

- Well, we haven't done Messiah sing-alongs, although they have been done here in the area and probably one of the more famous Messiah sing-alongs is the one that happens in Chicago.

Margaret Hillis pulls the symphony together and audiences bring their scores and she just turns around and leads the whole audience in this great grand chorus.

It's not, I don't think what Handel had in mind, and Margaret Hillis knows that, but it's another way of bringing tremendous enjoyment to many, many people.

- You studied with Margaret Hillis and also sang with her.

I guess if we were to rank the three great choral conductors in America, it would be Margaret Hillis, Robert Page and Robert Shaw.

Right.

Not necessarily in that order.

And I know from having known you so many years that you feel the influence that she gave you in your approach to music and what you're looking for in sound from the chorus was probably the greatest influence in your - Musical career.

Right.

And I think when you're taking your influence from people, it's not so much what you, what you hear them say so much as what you watch them do.

And that really, really makes, as far as I'm concerned, a a much stronger statement.

I watched her have the highest integrity when it came to her own preparation.

I watched her deal with the greatest integrity in dealing with people in a very fair manner.

I watched her expect the very best out of fine musicians so that as she used to say, instead of commanding the sound, you would invite the sound and in your conducting you'd make space for that sound to happen and then leave it to the artistry of the musician to make that happen with his own instrument.

- The Virginia Quale Society is one of the oldest performing musical groups in Hampton Roads, I think.

What are you 57 - Or 58 years old?

- 58 years old.

You've had it for five years.

- That's right.

- I wondered what you do to shape the sound.

Does that grow as singers move or does the sound changes singers move in and out of the choral society, or do you have a concept of what you are looking for and you are shaping and inviting that sound from?

- Yes.

- Yes.

Okay.

- Would you repeat of them?

Nod?

Yes.

Number one, of course, what you have and who you have to work with is as far as talent and the voice matters a great deal.

But anytime you approach any group, you must have a sound in your mind that you wanna create.

It's just like when you go to organs in different buildings, you still have a sound in your own mind that you want to achieve with what instrument you have to work in the choral society Here, we've been blessed with people who have not only an ability to sing, but more important an ability to listen and through creating an image in their minds from the image that I have in my mind, we can achieve a sound and then people aren't afraid for me to ask them to tone down or bring it up or change their tone color.

And that's, that's, that's a matter of developing trust over a period of months, sometimes even years, so that they know when I ask them to do it, they're willing to try.

- Well, it's beautiful singing and I want to thank you for making our holiday program quite special.

Thank you very much.

Gary Lewis.

- Thank you.

- Holiday traditions in our cosmopolitan area of Hampton Roads draw on the customs from many countries abroad.

While we celebrate our own customs, we also celebrate those of others.

The music we are hearing and the art we're seeing on this celebration is truly international.

The Virginia Coral Society will sing next for us in English Carroll that's only a few years old, it's by the contemporary composer John Rutter, and it's called the Shepherd's Pipe.

Carol - Going through the deals on story on the way to death away boy, on the way to save for joy that come to bring us shepherd boy piping tunes soly on the way to LA who will hear your tunes on these hills so lonely on the way to LA for joy that where is this new king?

She boy piping shining for joy.

Christ King I come with, come with you to be love them on the new kings visit, to be love.

And - What child among us has not delighted in the fairy tale of the Nutcracker, a favorite holiday classic at the Enchanted Castle Shop in Williamsburg, the Nutcracker is more than just a fairy tale.

Our Tempe fist traveled to the store to find out why - For the Edgar Berger region of Germany, the story of the Nutcracker who came alive is not a fairytale.

It's a way of life because some of the most beautiful wooden articles in the world come from this low mountain range just north of the Czechoslovakian border.

Perhaps the most characteristic of the region and the most well known is the German Nutcracker.

No one really knows when the first Nutcracker was made.

But as early as 1725, nutcrackers were seen in German homes in times past and even continuing today there's a certain amount of resistance to authority.

Kings frequently meant oppression and hardship.

When someone would say that he has to crack a hard nut, that meant the person faced problems.

When the German people began producing nutcrackers, they enjoyed depicting the unpopular officials as the nutcrackers themselves.

To make a fine nutcracker requires as many as 130 different procedures.

The wood cures outside for six to seven years and then is brought inside for final drawing.

By the time the wood carver finishes his product, over 60% of the original wood may be unusable.

Each nutcracker is hand painted down to every last detail before he is put on the shelf for display.

The final touches of a tag are added to verify its authenticity.

For Erica Benjamin who works at the enchanted castle, her first nutcrackers were not quite as fancy as the ones you see today.

Though nutcrackers are an old and valued symbol of German history, the smokers are really Erica's favorite because they represent an even earlier period and custom, - The meaning of burning incense is going back a long, long time.

And in those days, it was before Christianity.

The instance was burned on the day of the Wiseman.

And like in our country, we call it the epiphany in Germany, the three holy kings are coming that day and this is what they trying to do.

They're trying to bring the blessings to the house and take the evil spirit out of the house.

And before they leave with a chalk mark, they write above the door the name of the three kings, and that stays on it as long as it will hold out, which means maybe the good luck will last that long.

Here we show you a smoker.

He's still smoking and he's very pretty.

He is the toy, the toy paddler in Berg, for instance, you would see him standing in one of his places every year at Christmas time and selling the toys.

And he's still smoking still very good, very interesting.

And I think for our young people in particular, the famous fairy stories, I think all of you know the Pi pipe of Hammond.

He didn't catch the mice, but he did catch the children.

And this town was forever unhappy.

The mi rat are still there, as a matter of fact.

And look how beautiful and how colorful he has done.

A very interesting one is here, Dr. Eisenberg, I remember the old saying Pin, the Dr. Eisenberg Korea, Deloitte North Minor art, which means he drilled a hole in the head, then sat on the funnel, and she hoped to pour in some knowledge of these people.

- Nutcrackers and smokers are much sought after as collection pieces because there's a great deal of hand work and skill involved.

Only a limited number can be produced.

Even with the advent of mass production in this shop, the enchanted castle, the nutcrackers value isn't measured in dollars.

Linda Simeck, owner of the shop has always since childhood, wanted to create a place where the imagination could run free, where children could be children forever, where your senses are assaulted with all sorts of delightful sights, sounds, and smells.

For Erica and Linda, the fairytale comes alive and lives as long as there are children of all ages who believe like Clara, that fairytales really do come true.

- One of the masterpieces in the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk is a portrait sculpture of Christ by Jean Lorenzo Bonini, who was born almost 400 years ago this month, it is Bernini's designs of the splendid colonate outside St. Peter's in Rome and the main part of the inside of the cathedral that we admire today.

But he said that of all his many sculptures, the portrait of Christ now in the Chrysler Museum was his favorite.

Our Tim Morton produced this appreciation of the Bernini sculpture.

- Whenever I stand in front of Bernini's, sculpture of Christ moved, I moved to join the people on the right, implied by Christ's raised hand.

And I moved to the other side of the sculpture to see if I can see who it is or what it is the Christ is looking at.

The sculpture makes you a part of the story.

It tells Bernini called it Salvatore Mundi savior of the world.

And it was the last sculpture he worked on.

He was 80 years old when he started, and a few months later he suffered a stroke, which paralyzed his right arm.

He may not have finished the sculpture.

It is good.

He remarked to his son that this arm, which so weed itself in life, should rest a bit.

Before death, an assistant may have finished the face.

A circumstance not unusual with Bernini.

And what we see here is not all of the sculpture Bernini intended.

He wanted the Christ to float about 10 feet high above a plinth.

The sculpture supported by kneeling angels.

This drawing shows you the idea you have to get down on your knees about there to see the Christ as Bernini wanted you to see it as with all of Bernini's sculptures, the story he tells with this Christ is dramatic.

The right hand is lifted gently.

The fingers are curled as if in the act of blessing, the mouth and eyes have a similar repose.

Meanwhile, in between everything is turbulence.

The swirling and restless clothes, the curling locks of hair in the temple, in the forehead, we feel a world weary tension.

Also in the wrist and neck, tension and repose, we see the tumult and sin of this world in the clothes and hair and the calm of the other world, in the hand and face.

Bernini would've called this balance of opposites.

Contrato, that's the art history term.

But Bernini was also a very religious man.

Contra Costo also expressed his idea of God as being the unification of all opposites.

On this side, the Christ motions to the people on earth, blessing and forgiving them.

On this side, he looks up into what Bernini would've called the glory light.

We see the Christ as the intermediary, half man, half God who joins together, earth and heaven.

We are in the story, the sculpture tells we are ready with wonder.

For the next moment, - We've heard a French song and an English carol from the Virginia Choral Society.

And we'll close our holiday celebration with a lovely Austrian Carol called, still.

Still.

Still.

And may I take this opportunity on behalf of all of us at WHRO to wish you the happiest of seasons and a bountiful new year.