Case in point: a new version of the Hebrew folk song "Al Hanisim" ("About the Miracles") written by Chicago composer Robert Applebaum and soon to be given its world premiere by Chicago a cappella during the ensemble's annual series of holiday concerts, which will also include other Chanukah fare.

Applebaum, one of Chicago's best-known and most prolific composers, recently retired from teaching and moved to California. But his roots are still in his home town and it's where he wanted the new Chanukah piece introduced to the world, Jonathan Miller, the vocal group's artistic director, said in a recent phone conversation.

The holiday concerts take place in four different venues in Oak Park, Naperville, Chicago and Evanston between Saturday, Dec. 5 and Sunday, Dec. 12. They also include a selection of other seasonal music.

"We're always on the lookout for new tunes, and we have a longstanding relationship with Bob Applebaum. He'll e-mail me something a couple times a year. He has been particularly prolific and reliable about sending us stuff," Miller says. About a year ago, the new setting of "Al Hanisim" arrived.

"It's a very Mediterranean-sounding tune," he says. "The scale is not a major or a minor scale. It's different from that. It's unusual; most Western music doesn't have (those combinations of notes). It sounds sort of exotic." The purpose is the traditional one of thanking G-d for the miracles performed at this time of year. "It's a great Chanukah piece," Miller says.

Applebaum "has a long background in jazz, in Hebrew, in liturgy. His command of Hebrew is very good," Miller says, adding that the piece is somewhat hard to describe to someone who hasn't heard it. "It's a little bit a traditional Chanukah tune, a little bit piano jazz, a little bit Pink Panther, a little bit swing. It really works."

What he especially likes about the piece, and about Applebaum's music in general, is that "even when he is doing something that is in a more modern idiom, when it has jazz harmony or goes into a jazz, almost blues feel with the rhythm, there are some composers who do that and you forget it is a prayer. Not with Bob. He can put a jazzy feel around the tune, but you still know it's a prayer. I have always really loved Bob's take on Hebrew melodies and text," Miller says.

He describes Applebaum's music as having "gravitas-a weight to it. There's a groundedness to what he writes, a dignity. He doesn't forget where he came from liturgically and musically, and his feel for Hebrew is very good."

Applebaum's work is well suited to the nine-voice a cappella group, Miller, who also sings in the ensemble, says. "From a singer's point of view, his music is always fun to sing. His vocal lines are written well. He has experience as a singer and knows what it means to write music that is singable. I'm a bass, and his bass lines are great. He has a good sense of melody, rhythm and harmony." Applebaum has written much vocal music for the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston and wrote a "funky dreidel" tune that Chicago a cappella sang a few years ago, Miller says.

Rounding out the Chanukah segment of the program will be another version of the familiar dreidel song, this one by composer Mark Zuckerman. "The piece is very sweet and cute," Miller says. "It uses the four Hebrew letters that are on the dreidel, and parts of it are sung in Yiddish and parts in English. It's very charming, not the kind of thing you hear every day." Or even, apparently, every Chanukah.

"Holidays a cappella: Holiday Favorites" takes place in four different venues in Oak Park, Naperville, Chicago and Evanston, Dec. 5-13. Tickets are $35 with student and seniors discounts available. For times and specific locations and to purchase tickets, call (773) 755-1628 or visit www.chicagoacappella.org.