With my love of both traditions, I wanted to combine both Christmas Carols and Indian Classical Music while keeping true to each tradition and make their characteristics heard. Many of the songs have a short freeform introduction that improvises around the main melody. About a third of the songs (#2, #3, #6, #9) follow a rough format of an Indian Classical Music composition – freeform introduction, main melody repeated with some improvisation in between, a 2nd melody and improvisations that revolves around high notes, a tabla (percussion) solo, some more improvisations, and a final playing of the main melody, ending with what is called a tihai – repeating a phrase 3 times.

About half of the songs (#1, #4, #7, #8, #11) are more in a western presentation, with the melodies of the Christmas Carols repeated with different instrumentation and improvisations over the chords of the original songs. The remaining songs (#5, #10, #12) are a hybrid of the two styles.

It is my wish that you enjoy listening to these well-known Christmas melodies, presented with lush soundscape and interesting instrumentation, along with some improvisations from many talented musicians!