CeCe Winans has graced this holiday season with “Something’s Happening! A Christmas Album,” an 11-track recording that features five original songs and accompaniment from a full orchestra.
The 12-time Grammy winner said her fourth holiday album
is a project she had been wanting to record for a while. Winans’ son, Alvin Love III, produced the album and wrote the five new holiday songs.
“We were inspired by the Christmas albums from the golden era of symphonic popular music. This album is grand in scale and spectrum. Each song is accompanied by a 75-piece orchestra and brings out a different color in CeCe’s voice. Some colors will be familiar. Some will be new. It’s a big sound and we’re really proud of it,” Love said in a press release.
The big sound comes from the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Tim Akers and recorded at Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb, Croatia.
“I’ve been wanting to do a Christmas record that was fully orchestrated,” Winans told Faithfully Magazine. “It was just awesome, a very rich sounding record.”
“Something’s Happening” is the second collaboration between the gospel music icon and her son. Love co-produced Winans’ album, “Let Them Fall in Love
,” which won two Grammy Awards in 2018.
Winans said she “totally trusted” her son to produce “Something’s Happening” after watching him work on their first project together.
“Like most producers, he’s very intense. He has the ears of this generation. He has the heartbeat, and also he’s kind of an old soul. He loves to go back and do the throwback feel as well as the current. I think he’s a very relevant producer to a couple of generations,” she said.
The pair hope the lyrics and orchestration serve as a soundtrack for holiday activities and lead people to “remember and offer to others the best gift of all.”
“I think it captures all the different feelings that you get. The warm feelings, the hustle and bustle, everything you feel with Christmas, but the main thing is celebrating the gift of Jesus, and I think we captured all of that in this CD.”
Winans will promote the record with shows in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Baltimore, and New York before taking a break to spend time with family. “I’ll do a few concert spot dates here and there for the Christmas holiday and then I’ll chill out for a weeks,” she said.
“I’m blessed to see my mom still here, so hanging out with family is definitely my favorite thing during Christmas.”
“Something’s Happening! A Christmas Album” is available via iTunes, Amazon, and other music retail outlets.
