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Jews, Music, and Modernity in Buenos Aires

Dr. Lillian Wohl, Post-Doctoral Fellow
The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music will speak on Jewish music in Buenos Aires.

Thursday, March 8, 2018
4:00 PM PST/ 7:00 PM EST
UCLA Faculty Center
University of California, Los Angeles

Live-stream this event from anywhere in the world via the Jewish Music Forum Facebook Page!
Not on Facebook? Email us at info@jewishmusicforum.org to request a link to watch the event. 

Since 1994, “Jewish music” has emerged as an important yet ambiguous mode of cultural expression in Argentina, making audible Jewish history in Latin America and affirming a contemporary Jewish presence in the region. This lecture explores the intersection of practices of cultural renewal and the uses of memory as a Jewish musical resource in public and private spaces in Buenos Aires.…
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UCLA Concert “Traveling in Pairs”

Samuel Torjman Thomas (sax/oud) and Alon Nechustan (piano)

January 17, 2018. 7:30pm

The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music hosts a concert and reception, free and open to the public, at the UCLA Music Library. Dr. Torjman Thomas and Nechustan traverse a wide repertoire of Jewish music, extending and exploring new settings that bring a New York City sound to the fore.

A Yiddish Liederabend — An Evening of Yiddish Song

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13 | 7:30PM 
6:30pm Pre-Concert Lecture by Neil W. Levin – 7:30pm Concert

All Jewish Music Forum Programs are Free and Open to the Public
To Reserve Seats

An elegant as well as nostalgic program devoted to treasures of Yiddish song and the poetry that has inspired this musical expression in all its variety of style. Presented in the intimate chamber music setting of a traditional classical Liederabend (song evening) appropriate to the immediacy of this cherished genre, the recital will feature four of its leading interpreters: Ida Rae Cahana,Elizabeth ShammashRaphael FriederSimon Spiro, and a cameo appearance by Robert Paul Abelson, together with world renowned virtuoso pianist Yehudi Wyner.…
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Tzipora Jochsberger, Z”L, died at 96 in Jerusalem

The Jewish music world mourns the passing of music educator Tzipora Jochsberger in Jerusalem on Oct. 28 at the age of 96. (1920-2017) Dr. Jochsberger led the New Jerusalem Conservatory and Academy of Music.   Jochsberger was Director of The Hebrew Arts School (now known as Kaufman Music Center) in New York until her retirement in 1985. Jochsberger may be best known to many as the creator and executive producer  of The Israel Music Heritage Project, a 10-volume video series exploring  the music and culture of Jewish communities around the world.

Hilda Jochsberger was born in Leutershausen, a small village of fewer than 2000 people near Ansbach, Germany on 27 December 1920. Her father was a cattle dealer. There were only a few Jewish families in that community.…
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Composer Commission Opportunity

Kaplan Commissioning Project
Saint Mary’s University Concert Band

The ninth Helen and Sam Kaplan Foundation Commission for a new Concert Band composition written by a composer of Jewish heritage is outlined below. Any questions prior to application submission should be directed to Dr. Janet Heukeshoven, Director of Bands, at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. jheukesh@smumn.edu

Amount of Commission:

• $7,000.00 plus travel/expense allowance for a campus residency at the premier of the composition.

Description of the Composition:

• The work will be scored for standard full Concert Band instrumentation, appropriate difficulty level for advanced high school bands and small college ensembles.

• Length of composition: approximately 5-8 minutes in length.

• The composition must be based on Jewish melodic or thematic material, either folk or religious sources.…
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…BESIDE the GOLDEN DOOR

“…BESIDE the GOLDEN DOOR”

Annual Concert for a Bold Spiritual Community of Resistance and Love

Sunday, May 21, 2017, 4 PM
130 W 30, NYC

The Emma Lazarus powerful 1883 sonnet, “The New Colossus,” inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, has served as a beacon of welcome and hope to generations of immigrants who came to our shores seeking refuge and freedom. We can revel in the chamber music, songs, liturgical settings, choral music and works for Yiddish theater created by immigrant composers, Bela Bartok, Ernest Bloch, Kurt Weill, Sholom Secunda, Irving Berlin, Miguel del Aguila, and Regina Spektor,

performed by

Elana Arian, violin/singer, Ivan Barenboim, clarinet, Adria Benjamin, viola, Tomoko Fujita, cello, John Riddle, tenor, Beth Robin, piano, Joyce Rosenzweig, pianist/conductor, Amanda Seigel, soprano, Sebu Sirinian, violin, Lisa Tipton, violin, Sally Wilfert, singer, Cantor Steve Zeidenberg, singer, and the CBST Community Chorus.


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‘When We Remembered Zion’: The New Budapest Orpheum Society Commemorates Yom HaShoah

‘When We Remembered Zion’: The New Budapest Orpheum Society Commemorates Yom HaShoah
Monday, April 24, 2017
Pre-concert talk at 6:30 pm by Dr. Philip V. Bohlman, Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, University of Chicago
Concert at 7 PM

Drawing from repertories of Jewish song from the Holocaust gathered from the cabarets, camps, ghettos, theaters, and films New Budapest Orpheum Society bears witness to those murdered, those who resisted, and those who must not be forgotten. In this concert commemorating Yom HaShoah, the New Budapest Orpheum Society honors composers Hermann Leopoldi, Friedrich Hollander, Imré Kálmán,

Hans Eisler/Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Korngold, whose musical contributions trace
a path to the European Jewish past resounded once again.

Center for Jewish History | 15 West 16th Street | New York, NY 10011
This program is co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the American Jewish Historical Society.


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Melodia Spring Concert Awakening the Spirit in NYC

Melodia’s spring concert Awakening the Spirit will feature the U.S. Premiere of John Rutter’s new work “Visions,” a powerful work that examines the spiritual, religious, and historic importance of Jerusalem as a symbol of “a utopian ideal of heavenly peace and seraphic bliss for redeemed humanity” in four movements.

The violin soloist performing this piece is the wonderful Areta Zhulla, an award-winning young artist who works and trains with Itzhak Perlman. I’ll enclose the details of the upcoming performances of this piece below, but please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like this information in a different format. Thanks so much for considering adding this event to your calendar.

PERFORMERS
Melodia Women’s Choir led by Cynthia Powell, Areta Zhulla (violin), Rita Costanzi (harp), and an all-female string quintet: Rachell Wong, Robyn Quinnett, violins; Stephanie Griffin, viola; Kate Dillingham, cello; and Kathyrn Stewart, bass.…
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Steal a Pencil for Me and More in NY

Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 7:30 p.m.

JTS will host a performance of excerpts and discussion of two important new operas: As One (music by Laura Kaminsky, libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed), following a transgender woman’s journey to self-acceptance. The other is Steal a Pencil for Me (music by H. L. Miller Cantorial School Assistant Professor Gerald Cohen, libretto by Deborah Brevoort), the story of a real-life couple who fell in love while imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. Following the performance, the two composers, Laura Kaminsky and Gerald Cohen, will discuss their operas’ creation. Cantor Nancy Abramson, director of H. L. Miller Cantorial School, will moderate the discussion.

Tickets: $10

For Tickets: https://www.wizevents.com/register/register_add.php?sessid=8244&id=5114

JTS is located at 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

All students with ID—as well as JTS alumni, faculty, students, and staff—may request up to two free tickets each.…
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HaZamir Event at the Met in NYC

 

HaZamir, the International Jewish High School Choir will have a concert on Sunday, Marcy 26, 2017 at the Metropolian Opera House in New York City, located at Broadway and 64th Street in Manhattan. The event takes place at 4pm and is a Gala Fundraiser for the group.

HaZamir is a network of 35 teen choral chapters across North America and Israel, involving over 400 teen singers in a highly structured music and education program. Through the medium of Jewish choral music, HaZamir, directed by Vivian Lazar, treats teens to a fun and nurturing community, inclusive of all levels of Jewish observance, geography, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. HaZamir builds an inclusive and positively identified community of young Jews and instills a lifelong commitment to Jewish culture, the Jewish people and the State of Israel. …
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Triangle Fire an opera by Leonard Lehman in NYC

You may be interested in attending a performance of a new one-act opera, Triangle Fire, with music by Leonard Lehrman and a libretto by Ellen Frankel.  It’s being performed Saturday, March 25, 2017, at 8:00 pm – $10 suggested donation; no one turned away

at 8 PM
at New York University, Room 220, 32 Waverly Place (at the corner of University Place).

The opera, a Puffin Foundation commission, commemorates the fire that broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on March 25, 1911, killing 146 garment workers, most of them young Jewish and Italian women, recently arrived from Europe.  It was one of the worst industrial accidents in American history.

For further information: www.tinyurl.com/TriangleFire-Opera

About the Creators
Composer: Leonard Lehrman‘s previous works include  A Requiem for Hiroshima (with Lee Baxandall), E.G.: A Musical Portrait of Emma Goldman (with Karen Ruoff Kramer), and Sacco and Vanzetti (with Marc Blitzstein).
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Ensemble Lucidarium Summer Jewish Renaissance Music

Here’s some information about a tuition-free course Ensemble Lucidarium
will be giving in Venice this Summer. It’s an opportunity to make music and learn about the Italian cantorial tradition and Jewish Renaissance music while living in the city itself, and
will feature lectures various aspects of Venetian culture, an in-depth
guided visit to the Ghetto and Jewish Cemetery and a traditional Italian
Shabbat service.  There will be a workshop on old Jewish song, and you can
even try your hand at traditional Italian percussion…

The Music of the Merchant:  Summer course in Venetian Renaissance and Italian Jewish Music”

July 24 – 30, 2017,

Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Isola San Giorgio Maggiore,
Venice, Italy.
Ensemble Lucidarium
Enrico Fink: Italian cantorial tradition, Jewish song, voice
Avery Gosfield: instrumental ensemble, Jewish song, recorder, pipe and tabor
Gloria Moretti: vocal ensemble, voice
Francis Biggi: instrumental ensemble, mixed ensemble, plucked strings
Massimiliano Dragoni: traditional and early percussion, hammer dulcimer

Workshops on: repertoire linked to carnival and the Commedia dell’Arte;
the reconstruction of Jewish song in the 16th century; the Italian Jewish
tradition.…
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Nefesh Mountain

Jewish Bluegrass.  Last week a nice article appeared in the Forward about Nefesh Mountain and other “Americana” styles of music mixing with Jewish music.  http://forward.com/schmooze/359812/the-unexpected-smash-success-of-jewish-bluegrass-music/

There’s lots more music out there. Here’s a great YouTube of Nefesh Mountain singing their own version “Hinei Ma Tov.”  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXmb-rAJ1vc

Rabbi Jeffrey Summit’s “Singing God’s Words” at Jewish Music Forum

On Monday, February 13, 2017 at 7pm, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. will speak about his new book, Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

This book is the first in-depth study of the meaning and experience of chanting Torah among contemporary American Jews, describing how this ritual is shaped by such forces as digital technology, feminism and contemporary views of spirituality.

Rabbi Summit will be joined by discussants Dr. Mark Slobin, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus at Weleyan University and Cantor Richard Cohn, Director, Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Center for Jewish History | 15 West 16th Street | New York, NY 10011

This program is co-sponsored by the American Jewish Historical Society.


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Graduate Seminar on Topics in Jewish Music at YIVO

Graduate Seminar on Topics in Jewish Music
Taught by Dr. Neil Levin, Visiting Professor-in-Residence

This eight session graduate seminar, YIVO’s first such seminar in music, will embrace an array of topics within the wider spectrum of Jewish Studies related to the music of Jewish experience or connection—secular-cultural as well as sacred-liturgical aspects—according to the interests and pursuits of the participants.

This seminar is open to graduate students within any department at all colleges, universities or conservatories. It is not restricted to those within music departments per se, but also open to those pursuing Jewish Studies in general—especially history, literature, theatre, liturgy, or other sub-fields of Jewish Studies—who may have special interest in related music in terms of context and interdisciplinary consideration.

With prior approval, undergraduate (college, university, or conservatory) students may also be permitted to participate—both those with an interest in a particular area of Jewishly-related music and those who may be pursuing related term papers or projects.…
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Seth Kibel Quartet in Baltimore

Wednesday, December 28, 2016 — Annual Channukah Concert with the Seth Kibel Quartet
409 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD  21201
8 to 10 pm
Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students.  You can get them at the door, or better yet, order them online here.
For this show, I’ve got a fantastic band — Sean Lane on piano, Simone Baron on accordion, and Ed Goldstein on tuba.  And maybe a special guest or two!

New York Klezmer Series Lenka Lichtenberg & Fray

Lenka Lichtenberg & Fray appears in NYC   Dec. 6, 2016
Jalopy Theater and School of Music!! 315 Columbia Street Brooklyn, New York 11231

phone 718.395.3214 www.jalopy.biz
Workshop 6:30-8:00pm ($25)
Concert at 8:30pm ($15)

Come celebrate her new album Yiddish Journey

Toronto based, Czech born Lenka Lichtenberg singer, composer, songwriter, and chazanit. She has produced numerous recordings based on the European experience, including Yiddish songs, and her CD Breathing Walls, where she visited many old synagogues in Czech Republic, and joint projects with Yair Dalal.

Holly Montgomery Releases Book of Our Tribe

Holly Montgomery, a singer-songwriter and bass player originally from Louisville, KY,  transplanted to L.A. and then again to Washington DC., has just released her EP, “Book of our Tribe” under the project name “Eve Rising”. The recording is available at: The iTunes link is: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/book-of-our-tribe-ep/id1166351100, but it also has a page on her music site: http://www.hollymontgomerymusic.com/eve-rising.

Holly has her own band HOLLY, which recorded 3 albums, played at the House of Blues.  She also played in a band called Big Planet that was awarded “Best Acoustic Band in Los Angeles by the National Academy of Songwriters. Holly relocated to DC, where she recorded two albums and wrote the theme songs for several major charities.

Her Jewish-themed music is completely modern, completely original, and in English.…
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“Klezmer: Music, History & Memory”

walterzevfeldman

“Klezmer: Music, History & Memory” presented by

The Jewish Music Forum: A project of the American Society for Jewish Music

Walter Zev Feldman, Visiting Professor of Music, NYU Abu Dhabi

Discussants: James Loeffler, Associate Professor of History, University of Virginia and

Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College

Wednesday, December 14th at 7pm

at The Center for Jewish History

15 West 16th Street, NY

Emerging in 16th-century Prague, the klezmer became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times. This talk and roundtable discussion celebrates the recent publication of Feldman’s book, Klezmer: Music, History and Memory (OUP, 2016), the first comprehensive study of both the musical structure and the social history of the klezmer.

Walter Zev Feldman is a leading researcher in both Ottoman Turkish and Jewish music, and a performer on the klezmer dulcimer cimbal (tsimbl).


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“Israel in Three Anthems” Talk at Jewish Music Forum

michaelfigueroa

The Jewish Music Forum of The AmericanSociety for Jewish Music

“Israel in Three Anthems”

Michael A. Figueroa, Assistant Professor of Music, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Discussant: Brigid Cohen, Assistant Professor of Music, NYU

Monday, November 28th at 7pm. at the Center for Jewish History

15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tickets are free and all programs are open to the public. Please rsvp to: info@jewishmusicforum.org.

This talk discusses how three anthems—“Ha-Tikva,” “L’Internationale,” and “Yerushalayim shel Zahav”— have helped shaped Israeli society, analyzing these songs as performances of collectivity representing the multifaceted nature of Zionism and the shifting political landscape in Israel.

Michael A. Figueroa is an ethnomusicologist whose work resides at the intersection of music and political consciousness in Middle Eastern and African American contexts.


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Reb Ben Zion Shenker Z’L

It is sad news to report the passing today, November 20, 2016, of Reb Ben Zion Shenker z”l. Reb Shenker was renowned as the composer of over a thousand songs in the chassidic tradition, at least 400 in the Modzitzer style. Shenker was born in Brooklyn in 1925. As a child, he participated in the synagogue choir led by cantor Joshua Samuel Weisser [Pilderwasser], then a leading cantor in country. In the late 1930s, Weisser aided his appearance on radio and helped set the stage for Shenker to study composition and music theory. While his parents were from nearby Lubin, Shenker became known for helping preserve the Modzitzer musical tradition of chassidic song after meeting the Modzitzer rebbe (Rabbi Saul Taub) in NY in 1940. He started transcribing many of the melodies sung by the rebbe and others in that community becoming essentially “musical secretary” for the dynasty. …
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Cabaret by the Bay San Rafael

cabaretbythebay-ldelson
Come in from the mishegos (insanity) outside, have a seat,

and refresh your neshomeh (soul) at

Cabaret by the Bay San Rafael

THIS SUNDAY, 5:00pm   November 20, 2016

Comedy, Yiddish song, Storytelling, Dancing, Klezmer Music, and More!
At the Osher Marin JCC, 200 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael
Presented by KlezCalifornia, Osher Marin JCC, and New Yiddish Theater
  • Reb Irwin Keller, Master of Ceremonies
  • Veretski Pass (Cookie Segelstein, Joshua Horowitz, Stu Brotman), klezmer band
  • Jewlia Eisenberg with Jeremiah Lockwood, singers
  • Naomi Newman, performance artist 
  • Jake Marmer, poet 
  • Anthony Russell, singer 
  • Gerry Tenney, singer

This Cabaret celebrates the release of Gerry Tenney’s newest CD: “Gerry Tenney & California Klezmer: A Retrospective.”

Tickets:  $20 adult, $10 teen, free for ages 12 and under. More details here.


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To Life, To Laugh, L’chaim! Concert by Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus

Sunday, September 25, 2016, 4:30 p.m.
at
Merkin Concert Hall
129 West 67 Street, New York City
To Life, To Laugh, L’chaim!
A Centennial Celebration in Song 
of the Classic Yiddish Writer

Sholem Aleichem 

performed by the
Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus / JPPC
Binyumen Schaechter, Conductor
Seth Weinstein, Pianist
with featured soloists
Cantor Joel Caplan
and
Temma Schaechter (of Di Shekhter-tekhter)
For more information and to order tickets:
To hear a sampling of JPPC YouTube videos:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=kK2qAVmPYjc

WLAD MARHULETS is the inaugural winner of Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music

The Azrieli Music Project (AMP), a Canadian philanthropic organization, announced that composer Wlad Marhulets is the winner of the inaugural Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music for his Klezmer Clarinet Concerto. Marhulets, who submitted a completed orchestral work on a Jewish theme or subject – along with applicants from around the world – has been granted the second of two $50,000 prizes, which were offered for the first time by the Azrieli Foundation. In September 2015, the Azrieli Music Project announced that Brian Current was the winner of the inaugural Azrieli Commissioning Competition for Canadian composers. Marhulets’s 2009 concerto and Current’s newly created work, The Seven Heavenly Halls, will both be performed at the Azrieli Music Project Inaugural Concert by Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Maestro Kent Nagano on Wednesday, October 19, 2016 at Maison symphonique de Montréal.…
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HEBREW COLLEGE Prayer Leader Summer Institute

Sing.  Create.  Explore.

Interested in Jewish music and liturgy? Deepen your understanding and hone your musical skills. Week-long classes in June and July.

http://www.hebrewcollege.edu/SJM-summer-institute

“We’re delighted to offer this intensive music training to anyone with a love of Jewish liturgical music, who wants to hone their skills and add new ones to their repertoire,” said Cantor Brian Mayer, dean of the School of Jewish Music.

Classes will be taught by School of Jewish Music faculty, as well as guest instructors who are specialists in their fields.  Among the class offerings are:

  • Teaching and Leading Songs in Contemporary Synagogue Worship, with Cantor Jeff Klepper
  • Building Spiritual Communities, with Shir Yaakov Feit , singer, composer and specialist in Renewal-style repertoire
  • Niggun and Klezmer, with renowned Klezmer musician Rabbi Sruli Dresdner
  • Teaching Music, with singer/educator Ellen Allard
  • Sacred Drumming, with teacher/percussionist Mitch Gordon
  • Shabbat and Weekday Nusach, with Cantors Brian Mayer and Becky Wexler Khitrik CAN ‘14
  • Accompanied Repertoire for Shabbat, with guest instructors including Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer HCRS ’14, Rav-Hazzan Neil Blumofe, Cantor Marcie Jonas CAN ’10, and Rabbi Ebn Leader

In addition to offering courses, the Prayer Leader Summer Institute will also offer An Evening of Klezmer Music with Sruli & Lisa on Tuesday June 28 at 7:30pm.…
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An Erwin Schulhoff Retrospective

THE LEO BAECK INSTITUTE and the AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR JEWISH MUSIC present
AN ERWIN SCHULHOFF RETROSPECTIVE
performed by Mimi Stern-Wolfe’s Downtown Chamber Players
Wednesday May 25 at 7:30 PM
Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street
Tickets: $15; $10 for students, seniors
Reservations: www.lbi.org/schulhoff

The Leo Baeck Institute and the American Society for Jewish Music are proud to present Mimi Stern Wolfe’s Downtown Music Productions in “An Erwin Schulhoff Retrospective,” a concert of chamber works by Schulhoff, along with an academic presentation of his life and musical legacy, May 25th, 7:00 PM, at the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th street. The prolific Schulhoff, a Jewish composer born in Prague, perished in a concentration camp at Wurzberg, Bavaria in 1942.

The program will include the following works of Erwin Schulhoff”:
** Hot Sonata for Saxophone and Piano (1930) performed by Marty Ehrlich, saxophone and Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano.…
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Mauro Braunstein Nusach Database

Mauro Braunstein, a mathematician and composer, has put together a database of nusach melodies with score that he has transcribed. The database contains thousands of variations of nusach covering the gamut of Jewish liturgical texts. It is divided by liturgy (weekdays, Sabbath, holidays), life cycles, and trope. Within these sections are myriad examples of the melodies and traditions of singing for the texts. There is score set for each of these, and some links to outside sound files as well. The purpose of the site is to offer a leader or researcher musical options to sing the services. Braunstein also offers his services for transcribing recordings into sheet music of those who contact him, which many will find extremely useful. This is an excellent site as a resource for finding nusach in musical notation, although some may find some of the options given within a score somewhat confusing, most will find this very helpful.…
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Kraines Family Sings

Rabbi Ze’ev Kraines, originally from California and educated at Cornell University and University of South Africa, has a website with useful musical mp3 files. Rabbi Kraines, a Rav at Ohr Somayach Sandton in Johannesburg, South Africa, has put together a listing called “Kraines Family Sings” of mp3 files of singing Jewish melodies which has three major components: Around the Shabbos Table, Around the Sheva Brochas Table, and Around the Year.
https://sites.google.com/a/ohrsandton.com/files/kraines-family-sings