Giving Thanks: A celebration of fall, food and gratitude

Giving Thanks offers a contemporary celebration of gratitude, with classical music and stories of Thanksgiving.

Special guest Ada Limón, the new poet laureate of the United States and host of APM’s “The Slowdown,” sits down at our Thanksgiving table alongside host John Birge to read her poems and talk about how poetry amplifies gratitude. John also revisits other U.S. poet laureates who have been guests on Giving Thanks, including Billy Collins, Rita Dove and Ted Kooser. Whether you are early in the kitchen, on the road to a family gathering, or relaxing after the feast, Giving Thanks provides the perfect atmosphere for Thanksgiving: the warmth of great music, and truly memorable words.

Don't have time for the full two-hour program? Listen to the one-hour version, featuring conversation and poetry with Ada Lemon, and other highlights from Giving Thanks.

Hour 1

• Traditional: We Gather Together — Boston Pops

• Johann Sebastian Bach: Wir danken Dir - Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy

• Billy Collins reads “Aimless Love”

• Traditional (arr. Peter Hope): The Lark in the Clear - Royal Ballet Sinfonia/Gavin Sutherland

• Ada Limón on observing as gratitude reads “The Last Thing”

• Jake Runestad: The Peace of Wild Things - Conspirare

• Ted Kooser reads “Flow Blue”

• Traditional, arr. Butch Thompson: We Gather Together - Butch Thompson, piano

• Eubie Blake: Memories of You - Butch Thompson Trio

• Baxter Black on Thanksgiving

• George Frideric Handel: Concerto from Alexander’s Feast - Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner

• Ada Limón reads “What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use”

• Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now - Piano Demo

• Leo Delibes: Flower Duet - BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth

• Edvard Grieg: Morning Mood - Hollywood Bowl Orchestra/John Mauceri

• Edvard Grieg: Homeward - Stephen Hough, piano

Hour 2

• Johann Sebastian Bach: Aria from Goldberg Variations - Andras Schiff, piano

• Joseph Curiale: The Multiples of One - Ensemble

• Ada Limón on gratitude in dark moments reads “The Conditional”

• Vladimir Martynov: Come In - Gidon Kremer

• Ellen Kushner reads Wendell Berry’s “The Wild Geese”

• Leonard Bernstein: Simple Song - Boston Pops/John Williams

• Lou Harrison: Pastorales - Brooklyn Philharmonic/Dennis Russell Davies

• Gary Snyder talks about Buddhist grace

• Mark Isham: A River Runs Through It - Studio Orchestra

• From Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, Chartres Cathedral story; Psalm 104 - Read by Charles Laughton

• Trad, arr. Stephen Paulus: We Gather Together - Dale Warland Singers

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