[HANASHIR:5075] Cantorial music for the 21st Century

[Rachel Gurevitz <R.Gurevitz...>]

Dear friends,

Not sure whether to precede this announcement with 'advert alert' or 'naches 
alert'... take your 
pick - if either offends, then advance apologies.

Across the Fence Productions has released an album via peoplesound - one of the 
most cutting 
edge UK companies in independent, web-based labels - The Shlomo Project.

Shlomo is an Israeli-born UK-based cantor with a stunning voice (I'd describe 
it as more 
Sephardic folk, definitely not operatic/classical) who has joined with AFP to 
produce a set of 
tracks that offer something both unusual, new and high quality in Jewish music. 
 You can 
download 2 tracks from the album completely free from the web-site, and order 
the entire album 
there too.

Ok, I guess that was the advert bit (web site details below).  The naches bit 
is that AFP is my 
brother's production company - he and his business partner (who is one of the 
foremost 
arrangers and pianists for the UK's leading cantors) wrote, arranged, produced 
and engineered 
the album at their recording studio in London.

As I got to hear quite a bit of this album (a lot of times over, and I still 
love it), I can give some 
indication of what to expect - the 2 downloadable tracks don't indicate the 
full range of styles on 
the whole album.

It includes tracks like Ashrenu 2000, which sits right up beside the latest 
commercial releases of 
the like of Fatboy Slim, as a dance track that offers an interpretation of 
'Happy are we...' for the 
new generation.  It also has a chazzonic niggun and a freilich that take the 
ruach of heart-felt and 
joyous chassidic styles and offers an arrangement as far-removed from the usual 
chorus and 
synthesizer treatment you find on many chassidic albums as you can imagine.  It 
contains an 
arrangement of Adon Olam that taps into the meaning of the prayer via a 
meditative and ambient 
arrangement and, finally, it has a very pure piano, trumpet and vocal 
arrangement of Eshet 
Chayil that really highlights Shlomo's beautiful vocals.

The web-site to visit is http://www.peoplesound.com/artists/Shlomoproject

If you have any difficulty with this address, go straight to the home page 
http://www.peoplesound.com/ and type in Shlomo under the artist search option.

You do need a reasonably up-to-date web browser to be able to access these 
pages, and the 
software for listening to MP3 tracks.  If you buy the album it comes on a 
regular CD!


Rachel Gurevitz
London, UK


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