Chicago a cappella: Miracle of Miracles — Music for Hanukkah
Cedille Records

A terrific overview and primer, Miracle of Miracles — Music for Hanukkah presents songs from over twenty-five years of performances by Chicago a cappella, a ten-singer ensemble (three sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, two tenors, two baritones, and one bass) founded in 1993 by Jonathan Miller and directed by John William Trotter. The group's range is reflected in a discography that includes earlier Cedille releases Shall I Compare Thee: Choral Songs on Shakespeare Texts and Christmas a cappella, early-music collections, an album of spirituals, and another coupling new choral works and vocal jazz. The timing of Miracle of Miracles couldn't be better, however, as it celebrates American Jewish musical traditions at a time when war is raging in the Middle East and Jewish people again find themselves targets of hate and violence.

One comes away from the collection, recorded at Northeastern Illinois University in January 2023, with a newfound appreciation for the richness and diversity of Hanukkah music. Its story is retold through new arrangements of traditional songs as well as new ones by Robert Applebaum, Gerald Cohen, Joshua Fishbein, Elliot Z. Levine, Jonathan Miller, Daniel Tunkel, Mark Zuckerman, Stacy Garrop, and Chaim Parchi. Despite the fact that the project focuses on texts associated with a single religious and cultural tradition, it features a plethora of styles, with prayerful expressions and folk melodies appearing alongside audacious songs rooted in American jazz and even funk rhythms.

As Williams notes in introductory remarks, it's fitting that there should be such range when Hanukkah both “invites quiet contemplation of the candle flames [and] provides an opportunity to gather with family and have a really great party with really great food.” Complementing his commentary are ones by Trotter and Philip Bohlman, with the latter identifying Hanukkah as “a feast rather than a holiday with sacred obligations” and proposing that its increase in popularity over time can be attributed to “the ways it connects religious history to secular life.” Bohlman provides detailed historical background too, including mention of perhaps the most important collection of Jewish songs from the early and mid-twentieth century, Harry Coopersmith's 453-page The Songs We Sing (1950).

Applebaum's arrangement of the popular Hanukkah song “Oh Chanukah / Y'mei Hachanukah” inaugurates the collection on a joyful note, and immediately we're made aware of the gorgeous interplay of the vocal ensemble by the song's melodic cross-currents. He also contributes an arrangement of “Maoz Tzur,” one of the most traditional and popular Hanukkah songs, to the album. Sung in Hebrew as the holiday candles are lit, the song's heavily associated with the festival tradition. Whereas Levine's arrangement of “Al Hanisim” accentuates lively rhythms and vocal chants, Applebaum imbues his own variation of the song with infectious swing rhythms and jazz vocal harmonies. Meanwhile, his own “Haneirot Halalu” blends Hebrew and English lyrics in a setting designed to be sung during the lighting of the menorah. For his composition “Lo v'chayil,” Levine adopts a simple text from the Tanach to emphasize the comfort and assurance Hanukkah offers and expresses it with music both supplicating and entrancing.

Cohen's “Chanukah Lights” celebrates the intimacy the Jewish family experiences in enacting the rituals associated with Hanukkah. Four of six movements from Daniel Tunkel's Hallel Cantata appear, the quartet collectively capturing the expansiveness of the Hanukkah choral tradition and honouring the spirit of perseverance shown by the Jewish people throughout history. The third part, “Adonai Z'charanu (Psalm 115, vv. 12-18),” is particularly memorable for the beautiful lead vocal by one of the female singers.

Steve Barnett's arresting arrangement of “S'vivon” infuses the traditional's folk melodies with a swing feel, a treatment far removed from Zuckerman's reverent rendering of the traditional “O, Ir Kleyne Likhtelekh.” The recording also turns playful for Vladimir Heyfetz's “Fayer, fayer” and Zuckerman's arrangement of Mikhl Gelbart's “I am a Little Dreidl (Ikh bin a kleyner Dreidl)” and is downright funky for Applebaum's arrangement of Samuel E. Goldfarb's “Funky Dreidl (I Had a Little Dreidl).” Powerful dance rhythms, claps, and chants also animate Miller's rousing “Biy'mey Mattityahu.” At album's end are Parchi's “Aleih Neiri,” a spellbinding Chanukah tune presented in an equally lovely choral arrangement by Joshua Jacobson, and Garrop's “Lo Yisa Goy,” a hushed prayer for peace whose timeless message resonates all the more powerfully given the current state of the world. With twenty songs (two marked bonuses) packed into a sixty-two-minute time-frame, the album moves quickly from one piece to the next. That not only makes for a consistently stimulating programme but also accentuates the diversity of Hanukkah music as well as its modern-day vitality and relevance.

January 2024