Chicago is home to one of the world’s early-music gems, the Newberry Consort. The group’s biggest surprise hit, A Mexican Christmas, is a beloved program that re-creates the Christmas music one would have heard in 1600s Mexico City—an eloquent counterpoint of nuns in their cloisters and the villancico bands in the plazas. Curated by Newberry Consort artistic director Liza Malamut in collaboration with musicologists Paul Feller-Simmons and Ireri Chavez-Bárcenas, this new program includes festive works for voices, winds, plucked instruments, and percussion. There are two live concerts at Chicago locations (December 4 and 6) and one in Evanston (December 5). —Laura Jacobs