"Christmas Music That Will Touch Your Heart"

Track 1: Angels We Have Heard On High

(Laura Speaking) This is my second Christmas music piano arrangement. It is at least 13 years old. My husband was working out of town several nights a week, and I had two small children building forts under the baby grand while I worked in 10 minute increments. 

When my toddler son had enough and wanted “Mommy time,”  he would come up beside me, ever-so-gently but matter-of-factly lift my hands off the keys, and say “Mommy, pick-ee-up-a-baby-minute-pease.  Hold you!” 

I had no recording device at the time, so I would ask Jesus to help me remember what WE had done at the previous session.  He did.  This one is lodged in my brain, note for note, all these years later.

Track 2: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

(Laura Speaking) This has always been one of my favorite carols. Consequently, it was the first one I worked on after the music store placed the Clavinova in my home.

I have re-worked it several times, because I get bored with it one way and want to try something different. If I waited another month there would probably be yet another version.

Track 3: We Three Kings

(Laura Speaking) I wrote this one soon after “Angels,”  and is the only arrangement I actually have on paper. I wrote it out for one of my students to play. 

Eventually, I plan to have many of these Christmas Music arrangements in sheet music form.

Track 4: Joy To The World

(Laura Speaking) I wrote this arrangement when I was hired to play “Christmas mood music” at Miskelly, a local furniture store.  I sat at the Clavinova, right beside a beautiful Christmas tree, and played for people as they walked by. Many stopped to talk, and quite a few sat down on a big, comfy, red couch, and relaxed as I played Christmas carol improvisations for them. 

When I played this arrangement of Joy To The World, several families stopped in the middle of the aisle and danced with their babies.  As they walked away, they had big smiles on their faces, and so did I.

Track 5: The First Noel

(Laura Speaking) “Born is the King, born is the King, born is the King of Is-ra-el!”  I went about daily chores and errands for several days, singing and worshipping the Lord as I worked, with this phrase in my head.  The rest followed when I actually sat down to the keys.

Track 6: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!

(Laura speaking) This one has been in my fingers for years also. It is just fun to play! I sing with gusto all the while I am playing. It is a very joyful noise! I can “hear” a huge gospel choir singing, “Glory, glory, glory” at the end.

I’m sure my college composition professor would laugh at me for this one. He always told me not to try to put the kitchen sink in my arrangements, and this one has several bars of Baroque, followed by "snippets" of the Doobie Brothers style.

Track 7: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

This tune was very nearly titled "God Rest Ye Storm-Tossed Fishermen."

When Laura sat down to work on this arrangement, the picture that came into her mind was inspired by Pastor Joe Mett’s anointed sermon about Jesus when he was ministering to his disciples while fishing, when they were set upon by a storm; Laura knew she had to bring out that story in this arrangement.

Throughout this music, you can hear the ominousness of the approaching storm, you can feel the fear of the fishermen as the storm mounts and rages around them, and you can feel the reassurance of Jesus as he calms the storm and the men, and guides them back to safety.

In the early stages of development of this tune, we tried a version of it that included sound effects, thunder and wind, raging water, seagulls and calm seas, the surf when reaching the shore. Eventually, we decided that the storm effects were out of character for a Christmas music album, so we included the version without the sound effects on this album.

Track 8: I Saw Three Ships

(Laura Speaking) As I was arranging this one, the three ships that sailed into the harbor began to represent the coming of the Kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. I was thinking about what an adventure it is to walk with Jesus as Lord of our lives. His plans and purposes are far bigger than anything we can imagine, and He is full of fun surprises!

Christmas of 2004 brought one of those fun surprises into my life. I met Mr. Roy Manning, who was a medium bomber pilot in WWII. He flew a Martin B-26, also known as the widow-maker, because of how many young men lost their lives flying this plane, without ever going overseas.

Mr. Roy not only survived that plane, but he is still a “fighter” today in 2007 as he greets his eighty-eighth birthday. He really knows how to live! He walks with a spring in his step—I’ve even seen him sprint before. He greets every day with the attitude, “What adventure will we be pursuing today?” You cannot be around this man without smiling.

His friendship is such a gift to me and all my family.

I was arranging this piece just before his birthday, so I dedicated it to him. "Dear Mr. Roy, I pray I’ve captured some of the zest, joy, and fun that you radiate."

Track 9: Away In A Manger

(Laura Speaking) I had several parts of this arrangement floating around in my head for several years before I made myself finish it.

This is my simple love song to Jesus.

I am awed that the Creator would come to earth as a baby, into the most humble conditions, all for us!

Track 10: O Come, All Ye Faithful

(Laura Speaking) My husband and I led worship together for years in our small congregation, before being called to the church where I currently play.

Many Christmases ago, we taught our people to sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful!” with the "feel" as it’s played in this track.

I have fond memories of friends gathered around the piano in our house, as we sang to the Lord with all of our hearts.  The words for the middle section are simply, "I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, Christ, the Lord."

You can sing with me, too!

Track 11: Joyful, Joyful

This arrangement was written to be performed at a wedding. It has since been performed at several weddings, because it is such a celebration of joy. It easily lives up to the title, "Joyful, Joyful!"

This arrangement of the theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, also often called "Ode To Joy," breaks the mold.

(Producer speaking) When I first saw the name "Joyful, Joyful) on the CD label of the homemade Christmas gift Laura gave me in 2005, I thought, "Oh, no. Not another arrangement of that!" I believe I'm in the majority when I express the opinion that this tune, the finale to Beethoven's Ninth, while truly wonderful music, has been so overdone, arranged and rearranged so many times that it has lost its luster, and sadly, has become trite.

Then I listened to it.

My mouth dropped open. Laura's treatment of this tune is so fresh, so original that I played it over and over again, never tiring of listening to it. And it never got old.

After quite a few listenings, I began to think, "This would be a wonderful arrangement to do for a virtuoso soloist of some kind, playing all those delightful 'gingerbread' passages, with a symphonic band accompaniment."

Since I conduct the local community band, I had just the band for this. But I didn't know of an appropriate soloist.

But God does work in mysterious ways.

I heard virtuoso trombonist Scott Shelsta play at a convention in 2006, and the light went on. Eventually, we hired Scott to come play a concert with our band, and I did the arrangement of this tune for solo trombone with band accompaniment.

Scott played this arrangement with the Mississippi Community Symphonic Band on May 19, 2007, to a rousing standing ovation, both for his performance, and for Laura's arrangement.

The "Joyful, Joyful!" track on this album is the original arrangement that inspired all the rest.

Track 12: Christmas Medley #1

To fill up the remaining available time on this album, and to give everyone the opportunity to hear how beautifully Laura does improvisations, we had Laura record for us a 17-minute track of any Christmas music she wanted.

She chose to build for you a medley of three ancient tunes, including "What Child Is This?", "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," and "O Holy Night."

When the worship leader at Crossgates Baptist Church in Brandon, MS (Buster) discovered how well Laura improvises, he remarked to her that he wished she could come over to his house and play, while he and his wife just sat on the couch and listened.

This is because Laura worships at her keyboard.

She can take a theme and play with it, twist it this way and that, expand on its chord sequence, add chords and motifs of her own, and generally take you with her to bask in the theme and the music.

Musicians sometimes call this sort of playing with a tune "noodling." Because of this, Laura's friend David Miller, producer of the Christmas Praise album, calls these improvisations "Praise Noodles." We almost called this final track on the album "Christmas Praise Noodles," but decided that title would not be in character for this Christmas Praise album.

When Laura sat down at her keyboard and started to record this medley, this track of Christmas Music "Praise Noodles," she was thinking of her worship leader and his wife.

In 2005, many of Laura's piano students were scheduled to participate in the annual Clavinova Festival. For those who don't know this, a Clavinova is a very good quality digital piano, made by Yamaha.

A local music store, Mississippi Music, placed a brand new Clavinova in Laura's home so her students could practice on it to get ready for the festival, then after the festival, they just left it there.

Laura felt very grateful that they had left it there, and as Christmas approached, she thought, "I better make some good use of this before they decide they need to have it back!"

So she began to use the Clavinova to record some of the Christmas music she had made arrangements of over the years, then she dressed up those arrangements with other sounds from the Clavinova.

Just before Christmas, 2005, Laura presented CDs of her Christmas music to a few people around the church, as her Christmas gift to them.

One of them was her friend and fellow worship orchestra member, David Miller. He was amazed at her work. He knew immediately that these tunes of Laura's needed to be made available to the world.

Nine of those tunes have been updated, and are included on this album. Laura did two new Christmas music arrangements for this album, and an additional improvisational medley you can read about higher on this page.

We then found awesome graphic designer Barbara Hudson to do the CD package artwork, and the result is this album: Christmas Praise, The Music of Laura Callahan. (By the way, Barbara is available for other work, and will soon have her own website. Highly recommended.)

In the jukebox above, you can listen to clips of each of the Christmas music tunes on this album. These are 30 to 45 second clips from each of the tracks, except the last track has three clips, one from each of the tunes in the medley. (You will need the Shockwave Flash player to play these clips.)

We know you'll enjoy the clips, but you'll enjoy the album even more.

SPECIAL PRICING FOR VOLUME PURCHASES:

The retail price for this CD is $15, and it's worth it. If you use our BUY NOW link, you can purchase immediately, using your credit card.

If you would like to make a volume purchase of these CDs, we offer special discounts. The discounts are deeper for higher volumes. For example, if you run a retail store and want to purchase 1,000 of these CDs, we can give you an amazing price on them. If you simply want to give out these CDs as Christmas presents (and who wouldn't be delighted to get one of these!?), we have an excellent discount for purchases of 5 or more CDs. We can also drop ship directly to wherever you like (additional shipping applies for each recipient).

To inquire about these discounts, please use our CONTACT US form.