In 2016, I set out to create a Hanukkah songbook for my family. After arranging eight of our favorite traditional songs, I composed my own canon on a whim. It was originally paired with my original setting of Mi Y’malel as a set entitled Ancient Miracles.

Now that six years have passed, along with most of a pandemic (which vastly impacted music-making everywhere), I have heard Hanerot Halalu in many forms: a straightforward choral canon, a multi-track violin solo, a reimagined version sung by Roomful of Teeth, and more. 

The 2022 edition available at www.sarahriskind.com provides an assortment of arrangements that can serve as a jumping-off point for further creativity:

Original canon melody (B tonic), with chord suggestions (as in all versions)
Original canon melody (C tonic)
Solfège version (C tonic) (provided as a learning tool)
Solfège only version without a five-line staff (provided as a learning tool)
Solfège exercises to acclimate singers to the mode
SSA a cappella arrangement (C tonic) (most material derived from canon) (with optional improvisation section)
TBB a cappella arrangement (C# tonic) (most material derived from canon) (with optional improvisation section)
SAB a cappella arrangement (C tonic) (most material derived from canon) (with optional improvisation section)

Hanukkah Canon

Hanerot Halalu (Vocal)

Text by Walt Whitman, Members of the May Festival Youth Chorus, Joel 3:1, translated by Yvon Shore

Commissioned by the Creative Commissions Project and the May Festival Youth Chorus through generous funding of the Harmony Fund

Premiered by the May Festival Youth Chorus, Matthew Swanson, director
College-Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH, 23 February 2020

Creative Commissions: New Works for Young Artists

A Litany of Dreams, for SATB choir and piano (2019)

Wondrous Glow • SATB chorus (div.) a cappella • ca. 4'30''
artist: Ensemble Companio, Erik Peregrine, conductor
soloist: Scott Hare
recording engineer: Mark Travis
details: Recorded live 11 May 2019 at Trinity Center for Urban Life, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

TODAY collect the dazzling shelter of flowers 
stitch a crown large enough for the globe
fragrant enough for satellites to lift their noses
take the prayer of night into your arms
as she sleeps, breathe with her
breathe with the night
there are times when there is nothing
left to do, but create
form the unseen into a tangible communion
of stardust, place the galaxy on your tongue
let your mouth be a wondrous glow
your words a beacon
when everything is lost
imagine yourself as more than an earth-
quaking body a gift
the streaking tail of a comet
become that which holds your eye
that which makes you gasp

Text: Amir Rabiyah

“Grand Design” Copyright © 2014 by Amir Rabiyah. Used with Permission of  the Author.
Music Copyright © March 2018 by Mari Esabel Valverde. All Rights Reserved. 

Image: "Person Holding Firecracker" by Wout Vanacker on Unsplash

Hanerot Halalu (Vocal)

Sarah Riskind

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