BY TEQUILA MINSKY | The Glass Menagerie ushered in the holiday season with song at its “Welcome This Chanukah Night” concert at St. Joseph’s Church in the Village on the first night of Chanukah, Sun., Dec. 8. The 70-member chorus includes many neighborhood songsters.
The music ranged from Chanukah to Christmas, classical to lighthearted. The evening started off with Jewish traditional songs and folksongs, in Yiddish and Hebrew. Next followed a selection from one of Leonard Bernstein’s two overtly Jewish works, “Chichester Psalms,” accompanied by harp, percussion and keyboard. Connor Tsui, 9, sang a solo in Hebrew.
During intermission, Councilmember Margaret Chin, who was sitting with Democratic District Leader John Scott, mingled with friends and her husband, Alan Tung, who sings with the chorus. Tung teaches fifth grade at P.S. 3 and greeted many parents of his current and former students, who were also there enjoying the concert.
Excerpts from Bernstein’s “Mass” — deemed controversial as sacrilegious or antiwar when it premiered in 1971 — began the evening’s second part. Following classical tributes to Christmas and the well-known “We Need a Little Christmas,” the audience was invited to join in with an evening favorite, the traditional carols sing-along.
The evening wrapped up with the full chorus singing Tom Lehrer’s whimsical “Chanukah in Santa Monica” in a four-part harmony arranged for the chorus by John Kolody, the chorus’s accompanist.
Artistic director Susan Glass started The Glass Menagerie with eight Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI) parents in 1984. Since then, the chorus has grown into an accomplished group performing twice yearly with works by the masters, international folk songs and American standards.
The spring 2013 concert, “The Many Faces of Love,” will be Sat., May 4, at 8 p.m., at St. Joseph’s Church, at Sixth Ave. and Washington Place, and will feature Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, Renaissance madrigals, Haydn part songs and some Gershwin tunes.
