December 10, 2025: Sock pop un-marked

Wednesdays are becoming a tasty musical center to our week here, and today is no different as we gear up for another live music Wednesday with the extra dynamic and charming Irish ensemble Socks in the Frying Pan before they head just north of our studios to perform at the Iron Horse tonight, to hear sounds of Shane Hayes on accordion,  Callum Bell on fiddle, and Aodán Coyne on guitar in their amazing blend of traditional and the right now. We’ll get simultaneously more global and more local with the Holiday Pops program from the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. The concert will feature a wealth of songs and symphonic arrangements from South America, the Carribean, and secular and sacred music of many types, and we’ll chat with conductor William Waldrop , soloist Florencia Cuenca, and SSO President Heather Caisse-Roberts about Saturday’s selections. And Word Nerd Emily Brewster, senior editor at Merriam-Webster, knows that familiarity indoctrinates usage for the English language. So we’ll look at words that used to be trademarked, but now are just a part of our linguistic landscape.