Anne Hills,
Cindy Mangsen and
Priscilla Herdman conducted a "Voices of Winter" concert tour in 1996, and this album documents several stops on that tour, focusing primarily on a show at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. The program is varied and multicultural-the trio performs
Jean Ritchie's starkly lovely "Wintergrace" as well as the traditional Jewish song "Hanerot Halalu" and a few more whimsical tunes with winter themes, such as Dillon Bustin's "More Wood" and the traditional "Proper Cup of Coffee." Mangsen is a fine concertina player and Hills plays a mean banjo, and their arrangement of "Raise the Dead of Wintertime" is excellent. But the album's best moment is its final one, as the trio's a cappella rendition of the traditional "Lo, How a Rose" is punctuated by the unplanned tolling of a nearby bell. The magic of Hills and Mangsen's Never Grow Old never quite emerges, but there are some wonderful moments here. ~ Rick Anderson