Hilaritas Review

Variety and contrast in 'Hilaritas' show up early

By Eugene Dobson
Tuscaloosa News
Sunday, December 3, 2000

The message of hope and love that is ubiquitous this time of year seems out of place in our cynical, tasteless world. How do we find the true spirit of these holidays when we are surrounded by self-seeking people who will use whatever means are available to promote themselves, hawk their wares, rasp everything in sight and fight everyone else and each other?

Music is a possible way. In December we come to the winter solstice, the death of nature, literally the darkest time of year and heavy with human stain. Yet this also is the time when we slay the evil boar, cut off his head and parade him around the banquet table following the Light Elf, who shows us the way. And we are accompanied in this by the music of the ages.

Friday evening's Hilaritas found some of us doing just that, in our own ways enjoying the triumph over evil for Hilaritas means joy. From the very beginning with "Christmas Is Here" and "Let It Snow!" Tom Wolfe was the dominant figure. Who could doubt his originality of arrangement when you hear in "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" a Latin beat? The variety and contrast in the program shows up as early as the second section, performed brightly by the Univer-sity Singers with the crisp, tradi-tional "Deck The Halls," the quiet confidence of "Wonderful Peace" and the raucous and quite funny "Christmas Gift," the verses sung clearly by Alan Henderson, Ben Killen and Mark Tucker.

Hilaritas has always offered something special, something origi-nal, and it does not fail this year with the soprano saxophone of Dr. Jonathan Noffsinger. It is impossible to describe how Noffsinger "messes around" with his notes, slipping up on them and always eventually hitting them solid. It would never occur to anyone that "Bring A Torch, Isabella" could actually be a torch song. And Old Bing never sang "White Christmas" like this. In these pieces it was not only Wolfe's arranging that was so clever, it was also his jazz guitar with that silver sax that made these pieces, including "0 Come, 0 Come Emmanuel," so vivid.

Then we were all encouraged, in lieu of an intermission, to stand and sing "0 Come All Ye Faithful." This brought a tear to my eye, because I sang in the very first Hilaritas, which was directed by Fred Prentice, who did this very stirring arrangement. Prentice, who was the choral director at the university for many years, was the keen spirit who founded the Tuscaloosa Community Singers and all in all over the years made Tuscaloosa a better place to live.

The section entitled "Christmas in TV Land" I could have done without, but Wolfe's inventive arrangements made it amusing. The mournful, blasting trombone solo of Bryan Lokey in "Blue Christmas" (as a picture of Elvis was flashed on the screen) was funny and appropriate somehow. And the saxophone solo of Celia Whiren in "Charlie Brown's Skat-ing," as well as Rob Alley's trumpet part in "Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer," were both well executed.

And now it is time to say a word about the University Singers under the direction of Sandra Willetts. The first piece, "What Strangers Are These," had both the fine and true mezzo voice of Andrea Dis-mukes, who sang to us from the heart but with intelligence, as well as the clear, young baritone of Juan Martinez.

The second piece "Betelehumu" was a marvel of percussion per-formed by Aaron Paul Brown using only one hand. "This Endris Night," from a poem in Middle English and composed by Lana Walters, was not the best performance they might have given nor yet the best that they will give, but it is a beautiful poem in a lovely setting.

All three pieces expressed Wil-letts' attention to accuracy and articulation. (An English lady was recently heard to remark to her, "Your choruses don't sing Ameri-can, they sing English"- a compli-ment indeed.) It is unfortunate for all of us with the exception perhaps of Willetts that she will take early retirement after 12 years of excel-lent work with the university choruses, the Tuscaloosa Community Singers and her undergraduate and graduate students.

"I'm Gettin' Nuttin' For Christ-mas" featured Kevin Cowart on saxophone and Ian Connell on drums. It was a marvel of arrange-ment again by Wolfe, who took "nuttin'" and made "sump'n" out of it. Then Joel Gregory on the mighty Holtkamp organ accompa-nied the singers and audience in John Rutter's arrangement of "Joy to the World," a veritable frenzy of notes and chords, which I risk to describe as "Handelized."

The program ended with a medley of old and new Christmas favorites including "Christmas Song" - perhaps the best of more recent popular holiday music - in a rich jazz arrangement by Steve Sample, who with Prentice was a cofounder of Hilaritas.

You have one last chance, if you have not already done so, this after-noon to sweep away regret, dark-ness, despair and evil for a little while and join the forces of light, joy, hope and love - that is, unless the house is sold out, as it was Friday evening.