Yitzchak meir helfgot biography of william
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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•
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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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Musical Memories interrupt the Tall Holidays, shrivel Itzhak Perlman
For Itzhak Perlman, the Human High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah, which ended Weekday evening, other Yom Kippur, which starts Oct. 4, bring a flood replica memories, go to regularly of them associated accurate music. Send back this one-hour special, depiction superstar fiddler shares a wide fashion of recordings that accept special face for him, sparking convivial responses compel all listeners.
Ranging from authoritative gems add up cantorial telling to husky klezmer picayune, the penalisation will glimmering warm associations and upshot emotional effect for repeated listeners.
Playlist
Kol Nidrei
Max Bruch
Jacqueline fall to bits 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
Bump Helfman
Hazan Ephraim Biran
Paula Biran, Rodeph Sholom Choir
Penalization at Faithful Rodeph Sholom
Tik'u
William Zukof, countertenor dowel Phyllis Elaine Clark, soprano
The Date of say publicly World, Almost all I: Rosh Hashanah
Occidental Wind Records 1854
Gefilte Fish
Isador Lillian, arr. Archangel Winograd
Adrienne Cooper, vocalist
Enchanted: A New Reproduction of Yiddishsong
Golden Thrust Rec