Cantor Bantor

A Reform Synagogue

"Let them make Me a Mishkan
that I may dwell among them"
Exodus 25:8

CANTOR BANTER by Cantor Bob Cohen – February, 2006

Who are your favorite composers of liturgical music in today’s world, you ask? Well, you really didn’t ask me, but you might. So here is my pre-emptive answer or answers.

Debbie Friedman is absolutely my fave (as in favorite)! About six or seven years ago I had the honor and thrill of singing with her on the stage of the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie. How did that happen? I was there with Rabbi Jonathan Eichhorn and bunch of Temple Emanuel folks. Debbie (we are all on a first name basis with her, I think) called up Cantor Gail Hershenfang (with whom I had studied) to sing with her and then said, looking around the audience, “I bet there are other cantors tonight in the audience – come on up” (or words to that effect). Our Temple Emanuel contingent literally (well maybe allegorically) pushed me up on the stage (you know how shy I am! – well deep down…) and there I was singing in harmony as Debbie belted out Psalm 150 – Hal’luyah (that we all sing in a Saturday morning service). There were women cantors to the right of me and women cantors to the left of me and Debbie Friedman in the middle with her wonderful musicians. I felt like I was actually flying and will never forget the experience. We sang one other song with her and then stood in the wings of the Bardavon stage. At the end of her concert, Debbie asked what song people would want her to end with, and I shouted out “T’filat Haderech” (May we be blessed as we go on our way…”) and she started to sing it and I urged my fellow cantors to go back on the stage and sing but they had become shy (imagine!) and then Debbie beckoned to us to rejoin her – and so we did. By that time I had reached Cloud 9 or maybe 13. The generous spirit that is Debbie Friedman can be heard in her joyous musical settings of our prayers.

Can you name Debbie’s songs that we sing? Test yourself and then compare your answers with mine. They include: “Hal’luyah”, “T’filat Haderech”, “Oseh Shalom” (which we sing toward the end of the Yom Kippur service), “Mi Chamocha” (the jumpy one), “Ahavat Olam”, and at the Confirmation Service in June our children sing (with great panache I might add) “Well, There Were 613 Commandments!” and “And Youth Shall See Visions” (written with the Prophet Joel). Oy, I’m almost forgetting: “Light These Lights”, “Alef Bet” (all the young children know), and the song I love to sing in tribute to the Bar and Bat Mitzvah young folks, “The World of Your Dreams” (based on lovely words from the Talmud). She has written hundreds more and they are all available on CD. You can access her site at info@soundswrite.com and get her monthly newsletter which also has links to other composers and their work.

Next to Debbie, my favorite singing prayers writer is Craig Taubman, whom I met at a Cantor Conference in NYC some years back. Actually he appeared on a PBS special about Chanukah this year, singing the traditional melody of “Ma’oz Tsur” (Rock of Ages) to a wonderfully lilting rhythm unlike the German drinking song rhythm (which the melody originally was). Taubman’s first name makes me think of my grandmother, Olga, who spoke mostly Yiddish. When she had a grandson named Craig, she called him Craigele – I guess my dear friend, Gene Bluestein of beloved memory, would call that Ainglish-Yinglish. Craig wrote the setting of the “Barchu” that we sing at our Friday evening Shabbat Services. He has a klezmer-like setting of “L’Cha Dodi” which I haven’t tried at Temple yet – but did do when we were guests at Ahavath Israel, and am still alive to tell the tale! He, as do many of the liturgical composers, has settings of “Sim Shalom”, “Ahavat Olam”, “Shalom Rav” and others that we sometimes dip into. His most popular collection is “Friday Night Live” which is just filled with musical goodies. His newest CD is “Inscribed – Songs for Holy Days” from which you joined me, this year, in singing his melodic setting of “Hayom” during Yom Kippur. He can be reached and his newsletter accessed at craignco@lists1.safesecure. By the way, both these sites and others let you sample the songs so you can get a taste of the settings. His last piece on that CD is a hip-hop version of Hillel’s most famous saying: “Im Ein Ani Li” (If I am not for myself…). Is there anyone up for trying that???

There are many more composers to mention and I will return to them next month. It continues to fascinate me the variety of settings the same text can receive – how many different ways we can conceive of singing the same prayer. One or another may become your favorite but I would urge you to always be open to another setting which sometimes breathes new life into the prayer and gives it and you wings to fly, or at the very least, a new perspective on the meaning of the words. Don’t worry, we can always sing the “old” one again.