In Brief: Holiday Concert Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• With hat tip to Marja-Leena Rathje, get into the holiday spirit by taking your local Complaints Choir caroling. The Finns have created another great musical tradition! [Complaints Choirs of the World]


• It just would not be the holiday concert season without another chance to savor the holidays with the brain-splitting, bitonal conclusion to this infamous performance of Handel's Hallelujah chorus. It does not matter how many times I hear this -- it makes me howl with laughter. [YouTube]


• And the same immortal work by the Northwestern University Kazoo Choir. [YouTube]


• Also, this unforgettable version of O Holy Night made my cat get up from the couch and move to a different room. [YouTube]


• And, for good measure, Eric Cartman's rendition of that timeless Christmas classic on South Park. [YouTube]


• One for Master Ionarts -- the Animaniacs Christmas Concert. Because what seven-year-old boy does not like the idea of belching Jingle Bells? [YouTube]


• And how could we have Christmas without Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo and his Christmas Classics, also from South Park? This is what I have to watch with my brother every year (after all the kids have gone to bed): Kyle's Mom's a Bitch, Merry F&*#ing Christmas, and Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. NSFW, natch. [South Park]


• In non-holiday music news, John Adams has an appreciation of the lovely and talented Leila Josefowicz, who apparently speaks in tongues when she is amped up on concert adrenaline. [Hell Mouth]


• The secret to Maria Malibran's success as a singer? Glasses of porter. [Soho the Dog]