This is traveling music that weaves the moods and textures of the holidays into a glittering tapestry of wonder—without any songs you might hear while shopping. It starts with the premise of a weary world rejoicing, despite pervasive pride and prejudice. The indomitable gospel choir Mighty Clouds of Joy celebrates resolve over adversity and, to finish, helps us give it up for President Jimmy Carter who turned 100 in October! There are sparkling reveries, and solo singing turns by Lebanon’s Fairuz, Israel’s Flory Jagoda, and Britain’s Cleo Laine, with Americans Barry White, and Louis Armstrong. The astonishing violinist Hilary Hahn ascends, beloved flutist James Galway interacts playfully, and brilliant guitarist Andrea Dieci serenades us with Takemitsu’s ingenious arrangements of Beatles songs. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score to The Theory of Everything embraces Here, There and Everywhere; How, When and Where? as well as Yesterday! Gabriel Fauré calls for mercy and eternal rest for victims of global unrest. The trance-inducing gongs of Pacifica Gamelan cast a quickening spell among charming utterances by Baroque composers CPE Bach, his famous dad, Pachelbel, Monteverdi, and Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla—then virtuoso wind music by Saint-Saëns really takes the cake! I have always loved the season’s sense of suspense often missing from holiday music. It is supplied here with Martin Phipps’ dazzling score to Woman in Gold, the story of Randy Schoenberg and Maria Altman’s 10-year quest to right injustices still lingering today perpetrated by Nazis in the past. Perhaps, the most trenchant and timely track is our truth-telling Native American social activist Buffy Sainte-Marie singing, “little wheel spin and spin, the big wheel turning around, n’ round.”