Davvening Music

[Philip <mike...>]

Joel at hazzan (at) aol(dot)com wrote on 17 Dec 94

>I cannot deny the spirituality that you feel when you hear Debbie's
>music, but for me, you cannot compare the musical quality with S. Sulzer,
>Lawrence Avery, Julius Chajes, Isadore Freed, MAx Janowski, Adolf Katchko,
>F. Piket, Schalit, Baresh, Wohlberg, Lazar Weiner etc.  Also, many of
>these composers musical creations are based on Nusach.

OH BUT I CAN!  Her musical creations are based on NUSACH AMERICA!

>As I said, I feel that there should be a balance.  To not provide a place
>for the Jewish composers of today in a prayer service would be wrong.  But
>it can be so easy to forget the musical heritage of our past.

No one said to forget anything.  I was just pointing out that some of these
composers are Boring to the average American Jew.  If you want to do
classics, you won't have many people listening.

There are one or two Public Broadcasting stations in every market to dozens
of hard rock, easy listening and country western stations.  I like to
listen to classical stations.  Most people won't ever turn them on.

Most modern People would be turned off by Sulzer, etc.  Look at synogogue
attendance.  You are only fooling yourself.  The answer is in the
attendance!  Are you relevant to the majority of American Jews or does your
music make them shuffle around in their seats?   Or does it make them not
EVEN consider suffering thru a service.

>As a senior in the cantorial program at Hebrew Union College, I do sing D.
>Friedman music in the temple, but I do not think of it as music to daven
>too ...

I can tell you that since we got rid of our operatic Cantorial Associate
and brought in new people who are using the the fruits of the Commission on
Synogogue Music has been working on...the Jeff Kleppers, Danny
Friedlanders, Silver, Friedman, Cotler, Taubman, Solomon and
others....attendence has not Doubled, it has TRIPLED.  The average age of
the congregant has halved and is no longer a sea of grey.

The answer is in the attendance.  These people are there davening.  It is
awesome to watch what a difference the music has made!

b'shalom,

Philip

Philip J. Leonard
mike (at) order(dot)ph(dot)utexas(dot)edu