Wassail!

Kathryn Tickell curates a dazzling selection of roots-based music. Devonian, folk-singer Jim Causley will be selecting a triptych of seasonal Wassails, Wassailing is a Twelfth Night tradition with pagan roots, typically folks would visit local orchards and fruit trees and would sing songs and made a hullabaloo by banging pots and pans, and would be given spiced alcoholic drink from a communal wassail bowl or cup by the orchard owner.

Elsewhere in the show Yanvalou rhythms from Haitian-Canadian singer, guitarist and folklorist Wesli, Nubian and Nilotic melodies from Italian Sudanese singer Amira Kheir and Aoife Ní Bhriain and Cormac McCarthy reimagines Irish traditional music through Jazz inflection. As well as live recordings from the illustrious Copper family who will be dusting off the songbook to sing a Christmas carol or two.

Produced by Fatuma Khaireh

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3 To listen on most smart speakers, just say: “Ask BBC Sounds to play Music Planet.”