Festive Sounds of Hanukkah - Bill Holcombe (1924-2010)

December 10, 2023
The Ritz Theater
Civic Orchestra of Jacksonville
Conductor - Marguerite Richardson
Concertmaster - Tim Edwards
Videographer - Vladimir Paje
civicorchestra...
Program Notes by Lucinda Mosher, Th.D.
Festive Sounds of Hanukkah - Bill Holcombe (1924-2010)
Saxophonist Bill Holcombe was well known as a composer and arranger whose clients included the Tommy Dorsey Band, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio. In Festive Sounds of Hanukkah, he brings together a half-dozen well-known songs of that season. Opening fanfares prepare us for a march-like, expansive treatment of “Rock of Ages.” Soon, however, the tempo brightens. With unrelenting energy, the orchestra rollicks breathlessly through “Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them?” “Hanukkah, Hanukkah: Festival of Lights;” “I had a little dreidel; I made it out of clay;” and “Dreidel spin, spin, spin.” With “Hanukkah O Hanukkah, come light the menorah,” the mood turns wistful; the style is now klezmer-like; the tempo recedes. The piece ends as it began, with a grand intonation of “Rock of Ages.”