MAKHELA Concert

[Allen Davis <adavis...>]

MAKHELA, the Jewish Chorus of Western Massachusetts, will be presenting its 
spring concert of Jewish choral and vocal music at the Jewish Community of 
Amherst on Sunday, May 18, at 2:00. Makhela's Music Director is the 
accomplished choral conductor and soloist Kayla Werlin, of Amherst.

Rehearsing in Amherst this year, Makhela includes singers from Springfield 
to Franklin County, and is devoted to performing and promoting the full 
range of Jewish choral music, from folk songs to liturgical and classical 
art music. Over 50-strong, in its first season, the response so far, from 
singers and audiences all over the region, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Makhela is the first chorus of its kind here in the Western part of the 
state. Makhela has already performed in Longmeadow, Northampton, and 
Amherst, and has other performances scheduled later this spring for 
Florence and Springfield. Makhela's May 18 concert in Amherst showcases 
what the group has accomplished in this, its first season. Cantor Emily 
Sleeper Mekler, of Sinai Temple in Longmeadow and a Makhela Board member, 
as well as Richard Lenatsky, a Philadelphia-based interpreter of Yiddish 
and Chazzanut will be featured in special solo performances.

The program will include a wide range of material, reflecting Makhela's 
commitment to exploring the entire spectrum of Jewish music: settings of 
Hebrew liturgy by of Salamone Rossi; Yiddish folk songs; contemporary 
English and Hebrew secular and liturgical art music in English; excerpts 
from Ernest Bloch's Sacred Service; and a new setting of La Rosa Enflorece. 
There will also be a performance of Va Pensiero, Giussepe Verdi's stirring 
chorus of the Hebrew captives from his opera Nabucco, set in Babylonia.

Makhela is committed to performing the work of local composers, and this 
concert includes works by Amherst's Robert Stern, Professor Emeritus at the 
University of Massachusetts, Elaine Broad, who is the Music Director of the 
Grinspoon Foundation in Springfield, and Emanuel Rubin, University of 
Massachusetts Music and Judaic Studies Professor.

The concert will be held at 2:00 at the Jewish Community of Amherst, 742 
Main Street. Tickets will be sold at the door, and are $12, $6 for seniors 
and students.

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+