Festival of Lights

Festival of Lights for treble chorus and piano.

In teaching both vocal and instrumental music to 5th-8th grade students, I soon became adept at arranging and composing pieces that would showcase their ranges and particular abilities. One little musical of mine, Turkeys on Strike!, was a local hit…

Well, one winter we were learning some Christmas songs in my class and one of my students reasonably asked why we sang more Christmas music than Hannukah music. I honestly replied that I was less familiar with Hannukah music, but if he had suggestions for me I would be glad to include those pieces in our class. Although my father’s family is Jewish, my mother’s family is Lutheran, with the end result being that I knew far more about Christmas than I did about Hannukah.

In any event, my student brought in a song folder from his Hebrew school and I integrated some of those selections into the class’s repertoire. But then I also chose to write a new holiday song for the students, one which involved simple counterpoint within their relatively untrained ability. Festival of Lights is that piece.