November this year, Kaufmann’s first Christmas album It’s Christmas! is a collection of 40 songs from all over the world that remind the tenor of the festive season and are sure to conjure up a Christmas atmosphere in your home too.

The album includes several traditional German holiday songs (including O du fröliche, O Tannenbaum and Still, still, still) which Kaufmann used to sing around the Christmas tree with his family when he was a child. For added variety, there are some rare Christmas songs from the German Alps with harp accompaniment.

Other tracks include English Christmas carols such as What Child Is This? and In The Bleak Midwinter and the world-famous O Holy Night and Silent Night. The album also finds room for popular American seasonal classics such as Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!, Winter Wonderland, The Christmas Song, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and White Christmas.

Kaufmann, who also appeared at the Ljubljana Festival for the first time this year, is accompanied in these performances of traditional songs and carols by the Mozarteum Orchestra from Salzburg, conducted by Jochen Rieder, and in the American songs by the Cologne Studio Big Band, conducted by Wieland Reissmann. Till Brönner plays trumpet and flugelhorn on two songs on the album.