Chicago a cappella is about to demonstrate there is more to Hanukkah music than “The Dreidel Song” and the Adam Sandler song.
“When most people think of Hanukkah music, even if they celebrate Hanukkah, they probably only know one or two songs. And ‘The Dreidel Song’ is certainly one of those,” said Matt Greenberg, executive director of Chicago a cappella.
“We do have those familiar melodies in this concert, but they are given a new twist by some really brilliant arrangers. We also have a lot of new compositions written on texts for Hanukkah, some of which we’ve done a few times over the years and some of which are brand new.”
For the first time ever, Chicago a cappella will perform “Hanukkah a cappella,” a full-length concert program comprised solely of music about The Festival of Lights.
The ensemble will perform the program twice, with the first concert at 8 p.m. Dec. 10 at Congregation Rodger Zedek in Chicago and the second concert at 4 p.m. Dec. 11 at Congregation Sukkat Shalom in Wilmette.
Every year Chicago a cappella has performed Hanukkah music as part of its annual “Holidays a cappella” program, a tradition for nearly 30 years. But the idea of a strictly Hanukkah concert is something the ensemble has been thinking about for a while.
“So we have this treasure trove of music. Some of it we’ve sung multiple times, some of it we’ve only done maybe once or twice,” Greenberg said. “And we were actually in conversation with Cedille Records about a new recording and they liked the idea of gathering up all this Hanukkah material and creating a new recording of that.”
But then the pandemic started and plans to record the Hanukkah album were delayed.
“When we realized we weren’t going to be doing that recording until this season, we realized we had an opportunity to put together the entire thing as a concert program this December,” Greenberg said. “So we’re doing that and then we’ll go into the studio in January to create the recording.”
The concert program features the works of eight living Jewish composers and arrangers, including a piece titled “Biy’mey Mattityahu” by Chicago a cappella founder and artistic director emeritus Jonathan Miller, who has a long history in Jewish music and was working on the Hanukkah program before he stepped down from the artistic director position in 2020, Greenberg said.
“So in the midst of that he was sort of coming up with a new composition and decided this would work for Hanukkah,” he said. “He found a text that fit the music he was creating and we’re going to give that it’s premiere at these performances.”
Another new piece the ensemble has never performed before is “Chanukah Lights” by Gerald Cohen.
Originally written for treble choir at Cohen’s daughter’s school, he was asked to adapt the piece for Chicago a cappella.
“Jonathan asked him if he would create a mixed voice version of this, so it gave him the opportunity to revisit that piece that he’d written a number of years ago and rework it for our voices,” Greenberg said. “So it’s not a new piece but it’s definitely a new version of the piece written in seven voices.”
The program also includes quite a few pieces by former Chicago-area resident Robert Applebaum.
“He’s written so many wonderful pieces that we’ve done over the years so he’s well represented in this concert,” Greenberg said. “He’s particularly adept at jazz and is a really great jazz pianist and jazz musician so you’ll kind of hear that sneaking in to some of his compositions. Not all of them.
“Some of them do sound more like a contemporary choral classical music, but some of them do have that jazz tinge or jazz feel to them, including one of our favorite pieces called ‘Funky Dreidel,’ which is a piece we’ve done a number of times over the years. And this is the classic ‘Dreidel Song’ that everybody knows, but in a completely different way,” he said. “Very jazzy.”
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Those who are not able to attend the “Hanukkah a cappella” concert in person will be able to stream it on demand.
Both the “Hanukkah a cappella” and “Holidays a cappella” concerts will also be available for streaming on demand starting the week of Dec. 19. Tickets for the links to stream the concerts are $35 for non-members. The concerts will be available for viewing through June 30, 2023.
The Hanukkah album Chicago a cappella is scheduled to record in January is expected to be released next fall.
“It will certainly be in time for Hanukkah 2023,” Greenberg said.
‘Hanukkah a cappella’
When: 8 p.m. Dec. 10
Where: Congregation Rodfei Zedek, 5200 S. Hyde Park Blvd, Chicago
When: 4 p.m. Dec. 11
Where: Congregation Sukkat Shalom, 1001 Central Ave., Wilmette
Tickets: $35 general seating, $45 preferred seating
Information: 773-281-7820; chicagoacappella.org
Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.