Re: Hazanim in NYC w/ tradl Nusach

[Marvin <physchem...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jonathan gordon" <jbgordon (at) cloud9(dot)net>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 10:48 AM
Subject: RE: Hazanim in NYC w/ tradl Nusach


> I wonder where one would go to hear a great High Holiday Service from a
> musical/Nuschaot/ Chazzones point of view.
> It is a while since I have been in NYC and in touch with the chazzanim who
> practice traditional askenazic nusach.  Certainly Malovany is well known.
> The truth is that in the Orthodox community, full time Chazzanim are a
> fading breed. I remember walking nearly one hundred blocks to hear
Ganchoff
> daven one shabbat with an Orthodox friend, who wouldnt stay to daven when
he
> saw this orthodox shul didnt have a kosher m'chitza.  In Westchester
county
> there is only one full time chazzan in an Orthodox Shul, and I understand
> that the Cantorial School at Yeshiva is filled with Rabbinic Students who
> want to be capable of davening. The Orthodox Chazzanim I have spoken with
> tell me that everybody wants Carlbach, period. I wonder if that is true.
> So, one might turn to Conservative Synagogues for traditional, rich
Nusach.
> I know that David Lefkowitz at Park Avenue is a wonderful singer with a
> commitment to Nusach and also the Choral Music of Novakowski as well as
> other great 19th Century Jewish Synagogue Composers.  He used to have a
very
> gifted Organist there, as well, who may still be there.  Jack Mendelsohn
is
> at Temple Israel in White Plains, and he is a major exponent of Chazzones.
I
> wonder if anyone else could weigh in on this topic?
> cantor jonthan gordon
>

Cantors in NY have not often had a golden age.  My uncle, Dr. Samuel
Margoshes (who is best known for his dailty front-page column in Der Tag),
was a co-editor/author of a book that described in detail the Jewish
community in NYC in 1917, when all but 2-3% of the synagogues were Orthodox.
A chapter by a cCantor is sad.  He described how it was the regular practice
to ask Cantors to audition for a position, without pay, and repeat this
weekly for as long as months before hiring one, who they might then fire in
less than a year.  It is no wonder that those who could took their talents
to the theater.

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