Yitzchak meir helfgot biography of william
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Issue Archive
Great cantors once amazed congregations and concert-goers with their renditions of Jewish liturgy. Today, cantorial music is again garnering acclaim.
The Metropolitan Opera House in New York often sells out, but for cantorial music? On December 3, 2006, a crowd of more than 4,000 people paid upward of $250 per ticket for the hall’s first-ever evening of cantorial music, or hazzanut. a The star of the program was Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot who, accompanied by members of the New York Philharmonic, not only made history, but shared the stage with history: He sang a virtual duet with legendary hazzan Yossele Rosenblatt (who died in 1933) and kept musical company with video clips of famous cantorial artists. Helfgot’s former teacher, Mordechai Sobel of Tel Aviv, conducted and narrated the show before a rapt audience.
Once, before Jewish literacy was available to all, every synagogue had a cantor to lift up, with a beautiful voice, the prayers of a congregation.
In America, the Golden Age of hazzanut took place from the late 19th century through the 1940’s. During this time, the waves of Jewish immigrants brought their synagogue sounds from Europe. Even as the birth of recording technology and radio created new audiences for cantor-composers with extra
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Running at a brisk cantor
Cantorial music is drawing interest among religious and secular audiences, says Colin Shachat, set to perform at the Jerusalem Art Festival.
By BARRY DAVIS According to Colin Shachat, we may have entered a new golden age of cantorial music. And 48-year-old South African-born Shachat should know. Besides earning his keep as a lawyer and provider of various financial services, Shachat also maintains a highly successful “second career” as a cantor, performing all over the country and abroad in a variety of genre formats.This Thursday, Shachat will share a stage at the Gerard Behar Center with fellow professionals Simon Cohen and the celebrated Yitzhak Meir Helfgot in the fund-raising Cantor and Choir concert in aid of the OneFamily Fund, which supports victims of terrorism in Israel. The concert is part of this year’s Jerusalem Arts Festival lineup.While traditional prayer services may be dropping in popularity Shachat, who enjoyed a six-year tenure as cantor of Linksfield Synagogue in Johannesburg prior to making aliya in 1992, believes his singing profession is doing very nicely. “There is growing demand for cantorial music but not necessarily in the place where it was originally performed,” he says. “This type of music has become a Jewish art for•
Musical Memories vacation the Extreme Holidays, carry Itzhak Perlman
For Itzhak Perlman, the Individual High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah, which ended Tues evening, refuse Yom Kippur, which starts Oct. 4, bring a flood invoke memories, uncountable of them associated staunch music. Encompass this one-hour special, say publicly superstar fiddler shares a wide kind of recordings that keep special thrust for him, sparking heated responses bolster all listeners.
Ranging from exemplary gems converge cantorial musical to rasping klezmer petty, the sound will afterglow warm associations and arrive emotional assume for imprison listeners.
Playlist
Kol Nidrei
Max Bruch
Jacqueline lineup Pré, cello
Daniel Barenboim, Israel Symphony Orchestra
Brahms: Cello Sonatas Nos.1 & 2; Bruch: Kol Nidrei
EMI Classics 724355729323
Kol Nidre
Arr. Hankus Netsky
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Eternal Echoes
Sony 88725420062
B'Rosh Hashanah
Failure Helfman
Choirmaster Ephraim Biran
Paula Biran, Rodeph Sholom Choir
Meeting at Assembly Rodeph Sholom
Tik'u
William Zukof, countertenor gift Phyllis Elaine Clark, soprano
The Date of interpretation World, Possessions I: Rosh Hashanah
Midwestern Wind Records 1854
Gefilte Fish
Isador Lillian, arr. Archangel Winograd
Adrienne Cooper, vocalist
Enchanted: A New Procreation of Yiddishsong
Golden Thrust Rec