introductions...

[bravetoni <bravetoni...>]

I've been connected with this list for only a couple of months, and it's
been great to be in touch with such a network of people who are involved
in Jewish music!  My name is Laura Berkson.  I've lived in Rhode Island
for the past 14 years and am currently working half time teaching music
to K-8 at the Alperin Schechter Day School in Providence, and teaching
customs & ceremonies and music in an afteroon Hebrew School program in
Middletown, RI (near Newport).  I've been musically involved in the
Jewish world since my NFTY days in the mid-70's, and am also an Eisner
Camp alum.  (It was great to run into old friends from camp at my first
CAJE this past August!)

I play guitar, piano, some percussion, and recorder, and I also sing
solo and in my (Conservative) synagogue professional choir.  I do a
variety of performances in the community for events, etc.and teach a
small number of private piano students.

I'm a grad of the Hornstein Jewish Communal Service program at Brandeis
and took a hiatus from steady Jewish communal work from '87 to '95 to
perform and record and tour on the folk circuit doing contemporary
American folk-type music, playing colleges, coffeehouses, women's music
festivals, lesbian/gay pride events; and to teach songwriting as an
artist in residence in RI public schools.   I'm also in my fifth year as
artist-in-residence at the children's hospital in Providence, doing
music with kids in a program which I began in 1993 at a camp for kids
with cancer.  It's incredible work, and this year we've expanded my
program into surgical services and the ICU as well as the oncology
clinic and the floors for babies up to 11-year-olds.  Pretty soon
they'll be suiting me up to sing the kids to sleep in the O.R.... no
kidding! someone asked me about it today!

In my "spare" time I try to relax with my partner, Toni, and our two
dogs --- a 7 year old chocolate lab and a 1 year old shepherd/husky/blue
tick hound mix...  I try to keep the garden weeded, and grab time to
breathe, walk the beach and write new music.  I'm contemplating doing a
new recording this year --- original Jewish music.  My other two
recordings are a general folk recording and a benefit recording for the
children's hospital program (songs written by the kids with me.).  Some
of you may know a couple of my songs: "Miriam" was used in the L.A.
Amer. Jewish Congress women's center Haggadah, and "To Be Strong" was
sung by a choir of cantors at a UAHC AIDS healing service years ago in
L.A.  I've appreciated the exchange of resources and talent by so many
people in so many corners of the globe... A long greeting from the
"biggest little state in the Union".. 

B'shalom,

Laura Berkson