2017 Holiday Contest Entry


This arrangement of five traditional Israeli folk songs and Jewish holiday music will put you in the mood to celebrate! The first flutes are featured prominently in this arrangement. Each part takes a turn carrying the tune, with rich harmonies and driving rhythms enhancing the melodies. The medley begins exuberantly in the key of concert d minor, moves joyfully to the relative F Major, then finishes boisterously back in d minor. I have included a version of the alto flute part transposed for C flute in case you don't have an alto flute available.

Songs featured are:

� Hevaynu Shalom Alaychem (We Brought Peace Unto You)

� Maoz Tsur (Rock of Ages)

� Artsa Alinu (We Have Come to the Land)

� Chanukah

� Yibane Amenu (In Our Land We Shall Rebuild Our Nation)



I hope you will enjoy performing this medley as much as I have enjoyed arranging it! Audiences are sure to love it. This would work well in a variety of venues:school concert, synagogue, shopping mall background music, chamber music concert, prelude to a concert, etc. It?s perfect for anywhere you want to lift people?s spirits with energetic, familiar seasonal and folk music. Duration is approximately 3.5 min. L?chaim!

Gustav Holst - Folksongs of Hampshire England . In the early 1900's there was great interest in collecting and preserving the folk songs of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Equipped with their newly invented recording devices, people such as Cecil Sharp, Charles Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst would travel into the country-side to record, or notate songs being sung. They would frequently use these songs in their own compositions. Holst's music in particular is filled with those songs and his two suites for band are especially valued by wind bands around the world. This group of four songs was arranged for voice and piano by Holst and set for flute choir by John Gibson. The songs are 1. Young Edwin in the Lowlands Low 2. Bedlam City 3. The Irish Girl 4. Young Reilly. The instrumentation is: Piccolo, Flute 1-3, Alto Flute, Bass Flute, and Contra Bass Flute.