It’s the day after Thanksgiving, 2019, and that makes it okay for me to turn my sights to Christmas, because letting Christmas intrude on Thanksgiving is evil.
One thing that makes Christmas the joy it is are the many carols out there. But there’s one in particular that seems to inspire musicians to come out with the most epic versions imaginable: “Carol of the Bells.” There’s something about that song that shouts, “Play with me!” So I’m gonna play with exploring different versions of it that can only be described as epic.
Canadian David Foster is an A-list music producer who’s produced for top performers like Christina Aguilera, Chicago and Peter Cetera, Natalie Cole, Alice Cooper, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Kenny Loggins, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rogers, Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand… The list goes on and on. Forty-seven Grammy nominations and sixteen wins under his belt.
But he also composes and arranges songs too. When he came out with a Christmas album, a collection of carols by different prominent singers, he led with his arrangement of “Carol of the Bells” that unseated my favorite version of many years, something I thought was impossible. Quick and lively and undoubtedly epic, it makes you want to celebrate the birth of the Messiah by becoming a Zealot.
Mannheim Steamroller was the group that held the title of my favorite performance of “Carol of the Bells” for a good long time. Their multiple Christmas albums are epic all by themselves, and I consider them the unofficial official Christmas music of America.
Founded and led by 
hippie-esque Chip Davis, Mannheim Steamroller’s music is a sort of hybrid mash-up of a modern version of classical music and new age vibe. They’re most famous for their Fresh Aire series of albums, but just as much for the series of Christmas albums which gave us a fresh (pun intended) view of traditional Christmas carols.
I attended one of their Christmas concerts, and it was epic! Accompanied by videos on a giant screen with the band in semi-shadows below, it was an experience indeed. I was particularly fascinated by the synthesizer violin. Yes, violin, not keyboard. Whenever a French horn whoops in their songs, it’s the violin player creating it with a big sweep of the bow across the violin. You don’t see that every day.
Their version of “Carol of the Bells” is epic in a sophisticated way only Mannheim Steamroller can pull off.
For some reason, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is popular with a lot of people. For me personally, they seem way too noisy and garish. But they do pull out all the stops if you like your music unsubtle.
I suppose that’s not surprising, since, contrary to what you’d expect from the title, they are not Russian, but founded by producer Paul O’Neill who worked with the likes of Aerosmith, AC/DC, and Joan Jett, not exactly folk ballad types. The name was inspired by a trip to Russia where he described Siberia as “incredibly beautiful but incredibly harsh and unforgiving.” He named it after the Trans-Siberian Railway, saying, “The one thing that everyone who lives there has in common that runs across it in relative safety is the Trans-Siberian Railway.” He used that as a metaphor for the commonality of music, plus he also liked the initials TSO.
The orchestra’s “Carol of the Bells” vividly evokes it’s rock-and-roll origins, but with a gentle, beautiful intro.
YouTube sensation Lindsey Stirling, the dancing violinist, built a huge career on her unique style of fluidly prancing around the stage while chewing up her violin with exotically beautiful music. She covers a wide variety of music types, plus composes her own songs.
A milestone in her career was when she became a quarter-finalist on America’s Got Talent. Oddly, it seems to have been a negative milestone. Judge Piers Morgan said, “You’re not untalented, but you’re not good enough, I don’t think, to get away with flying through the air and trying to play the violin at the same time.” Sharon Osborn said, “You need to be in a group. What you’re doing is not enough to fill a theater in Vegas.”
After Stirling’s first reaction of disappointment (“I was devastated at the results. It was painful, and a bit humiliating.”) she basically said, “Oh yeah? Hold my beer”—metaphorically of course, since that would be a strange thing for a practicing Mormon to say. She went on to be one of the most successful YouTube celebrities of all time and tours worldwide, filling theaters everywhere she goes.
She’s an epic model of determination in the face of demoralizing criticism, and her video of “Carol of the Bells” shows why. As much for the visuals as the music, she delivers an epic performance, not least for the fairly sexy outfits for a good Mormon girl.
L’Orchestra Cinématique is an orchestra based in London that mainly covers movie and television soundtracks, thus the “Cinématique” in their name. A perusal of their YouTube channel shows the extent of how many popular scores they’ve covered.
I’d not heard of them before I found their cover of “Carol of the Bells,” and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information on who they are on the Internet. I felt obligated to include their version in this list because it’s officially epic—it says so right there in the video title. And if you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, what can you believe?
From the examples so far, you might think epicness requires epic orchestras or instruments. But there’s one group who begs to differ.
The Pentatonix are a well-known a cappela group that dazzles with their unvarnished human voices. The group began with Kirstin Maldonado, Mitchell Grassi, and Scott Hoying, schoolmates in a high school in Arlington, Texas. They attracted attention when they performed Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone” in a radio station’s contest to meet the cast of Glee. They lost the contest, but that and a YouTube video launched their career.
They went their separate ways for a while, but reformed with two new additions because they felt like they needed a bass (Avriel Kaplan) and a beatboxer (Kevin Olusola). They went on to win for the third season of The Sing-Off. Their rendition of “Carol of the Bells” achieves epic status with nothing but human voices. (They do cheat a little with some percussion—I think!)
There’s these guys called The Piano Guys. Lord knows why, since they seem to mostly feature the cello, not the piano. The cello is played by Steven Sharp Nelson and the piano by Jon Schmidt. They also include videographer Paul Anderson and producer Al van der Beek as part of the group. Like Lindsey Stirling, they are also a YouTube sensation.
Digging into things a little, I discovered why they’re named The Piano Guys. They began as a marketing strategy for a piano store in St. George, Utah, called The Piano Guys. Okay, makes sense, but dudes! You still feature the cello way more than any piano!
Their videos are impressive, not least for the exotic places they drag a grand piano and a cello out to for the filming. Their video of “Carol of the Bells” neglects the piano and offers up an arrangement for twelve cellos instead, although we only see one on screen. The exotic locales and the dazzling bow twirling add as much epicness as the music itself.
A question I have is, why does one Christmas carol inspire so much epic creativeness from so many artists? Is it just a fluke, or is there something inherent in the carol itself? To explore that issue, I sampled what claims to be the original version of “Carol of the Bells.” That’s quite a claim, but again, it says it right there on the Internet, so what can I do? Can we find any epicness in this allegedly straightforward, canonical version of the song?
Turns out we can! Now this is becoming an obsession with me. Surely there must be one version of the song that is traditional, even staid, and not epic.
I know! Could there be a more traditional, staid group that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Surely their version will be simple, unadorned, and though no doubt beautiful, hardly epic. Let’s take a look.
Damn! Even they couldn’t help but be epic! Of course it helped that they had an orchestra and a boatload of chimes and bells to back them up.
It’s official now. So many epic versions of “Carol of the Bells” exist for the simple reason that the song itself is epic. It stands out as a maverick among the traditional and beloved songs that celebrate the birth of Jesus and peace on earth. Its very nature invites artists to play with it.
Since I’ve given up my quest for a non-epic version of “Carol of the Bells,” I decided to end with an especially epic one. This time it’s officially declared epic twice! But I think it’s the alleged fact that it’s performed “two steps from hell” and it’s promoted by a disturbing Mecha-Santa is what really gives it its epic quality.
I think this may be the version they use to celebrate Christmas in Mordor.