What makes it great? Benjamin Britten, The American Boychoir, and Rob Kapilow musician. All three will join for a one-of-a kind event this Monday evening at 7 p.m. at Nassau Presbyterian Church, as performers and presenter parse out Britten’s beloved “A Ceremony of Carols,” followed by a complete performance of the work directed by Fernando Malvar-Luiz.

What Kapilow, host of the long-running program “What Makes It Great?,” does can hardly be described as lecturing.

“It’s an unusual kind of evening designed to get people to hear music in a different way, to get them involved in music in a different way,” he says. “The whole idea of ‘What Makes It Great?’ is to invite people into an evening designed to really get them inside a piece of music, from the composer’s point-of-view, to see what makes it tick. There’s an hour of discussions and demonstrations with the choir, with the audience singing as well, you know, so that when they do hear the complete performance after intermission, they’ll hear it with new ears. That’s really the goal. And then, of course, they get to ask anyone a question – me, the conductor, the choir, the kids, whatever they want.”

“What Makes It Great?” has undergone a gradual evolution over the past two decades, from its beginnings as a brief segment on NPR’s “Performance Today” to its current format of a two-hour commentary-with-concert event. Monday’s appearance is sponsored by WWFM – The Classical Network, the current producer of the radio broadcasts. WWFM can be heard locally at 89.1 FM and globally at wwfm.org.

“A Ceremony of Carols” will be heard in a somewhat different guise on The American Boychoir’s popular “Home for the Holidays” concert. That program will be present at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Dec. 18 at 4 p.m.

Find out what distinguishes the two in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/11/classical_music_rob_kapilow_am.html