"Chanukah Suite" by Jason Robert Brown

In celebration of Chanukah (or Hanukkah, depending on how you spell it), which begins tonight and lasts until December 5th, I wanted to feature some really lovely music which nearly always gets overlooked during the holiday season. Christmas kind of takes over everything, and other holidays (like Chanukah, Yule, and Kwanzaa, to name a very few) are forgotten and glossed over, much to the chagrin of those who celebrate them. Winter festivals are not unique to any culture or religion, and can be traced back incredibly far - the earliest festivals and celebrations can be attributed to the Pagan communities with their celebration of the Winter solstice (also called Yule).

That said - I went in search of one of the embarrassingly few Chanukah songs I know, which is called S'vivon, and ended up discovering a really wonderful medley called "Chanukah Suite," by Jewish composer, Jason Robert Brown (who also wrote music for Parade, The Last Five Years, and Urban Cowboy). 

Jason Robert Brown, photo courtesy News.Harvard.Edu

So, first up, have a listen to "Chanukah Suite," performed here by an adept concert choir, who I deduce is from San Ramon Valley High School in California. Great job, everyone - this isn't a super easy piece of music to perform, and you nailed it! Major props to the soloists as well - excellent tone, *especially* for a high school aged choir.

Because the blog platform won't let me embed the video, you'll have to click here. Sorry!

Its a bit different than your stock Christmas music, isn't it? As many of you likely already know, traditional Jewish music uses a different tonality than popular music. It deals primarily in modal scale sets, which give Jewish music this very distinct sound.  And yet, it still evokes a feeling of crispness, of a chill in the air and the mysteries of Winter.

(That's the true beauty of music, I think. Different cultures across the globe, using different instruments, styles, pitches, and rhythms, still all manage to convey a message, and its nearly always decipherable even when you're never been exposed to that culture before.)

This medley (or suite) is comprised of four different traditional tunes: "S'vivon," which can be roughly translated to dreidel, or spinning top, "Al Hanism," which is derived from text used in Jewish prayer services, and "Ma'oz Tsur," which is a song of praise to God. The transitions between tunes are roughly at 0:36, 2:09, and 3:23, after which we have some layering of the different tunes on top of one another and returning to previously exposed songs, which is really engaging (and arguably use of micro-cyclicism, but then I guess most medleys use this formula).

If you haven't figure it out yet, I'm sucker for fusion in music, and this piece really hits the mark. Jason Robert Brown is known for his work on Broadway, and its obvious in this medley. Take another listen and play close attention to the piano part and the interludes, and listen how chromatic and jazzy they are - the absolute embodiment of modern musical theatre! Jason Robert Brown melded these two very different styles into one cohesive suite, and I absolutely love it.

Please feel free to leave comments for the performers or to tell me what your favourite Chanukah song is (or to school me on Jewish tradition, I'm very sorry in advance if I've gotten anything hideously or offensively incorrect)!