Over the Rhine, the long-running Cincinnati-area musical outfit led by husband-and-wife duo Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler, formed 35 years ago. A lot has changed since — including in the band’s namesake neighborhood — but Over the Rhine has endured, releasing 15 studio albums and touring consistently for a dedicated fan base both domestically and abroad.
For the uninitiated, Bergquist’s versatile, ever-emotive voice and the duo’s deft compositional skills anchor Over the Rhine’s frequently transfixing mix of folk and ethereal pop. Given the band’s religious origins (the duo met at Malone College, a Christian institution in Canton, Ohio), it’s no surprise they eventually found their way to Christmas music, releasing The Darkest Night of the Year in 1996. That’s also the year they started what has become an annual tradition: Christmas shows featuring a host of original songs and a smattering of cover tunes.
A pair of “holiday” albums followed, 2006’s Snow Angels and 2014’s Blood Oranges in the Snow, which feature titles like “All I Ever Get for Christmas Is Blue,” Snowed In with You,” “If We Make It Through December” and “First Snowfall.”
This year’s run of shows at Memorial Hall, billed as “An Acoustic Christmas with Over the Rhine,” will undoubtedly feature a slew of offerings from their seasonal songbook as well as some surprises.
“Folks began snatching up copies (of The Darkest Night of the Year) and seemed to agree that they hadn’t heard anything quite like it,” Detweiler wrote recently when OTR announced this year’s shows. “We will be leaning into some harmonies and making an intimate but hopefully holy ruckus. It won’t be all Christmas music: We’ll certainly mix in tunes from many of our records along the way. But hopefully it’s still true: Hopefully, you haven’t heard anything quite like it.”
Over the Rhine play Memorial Hall Dec. 20-22. More info: memorialhallotr.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 11 print edition.
This article appears in Dec 11-24, 2024.