Gershon Kingsley [8.559435]
This new recording of four works by German-born American composer
Gershon Kingsley reveals the influence of American idioms and
contemporary musical developments-in this case jazz and electronic
music-on the work of Jewish composers, and confirms the openness of both
composers and Jewish institutions to expanding the boundaries of
traditional liturgical practice. In addition, the CD illustrates the
continuing affect of the Holocaust in provoking response by creative
artists, and points to the upcoming observance of the 60th anniversary
of the allied liberation of the concentration camps in the spring of
1945.For details about this CD, go to
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=32

Gershon Kingsley has described his creative world as one in which
“Mozart dances with the Beatles and Carl Jung struggles to reconcile the
opposites of our human soul.” This versatile composer has combined
classical, jazz, popular and electronic idioms in his works, most of
which have a marked theatrical bent.
The opening composition on this new CD is Kingsley’s haunting
musical-theater piece for voices and chamber ensemble, Voices From The Shadow, which is based on intensely personal poems from the Holocaust written in six languages by 14 concentration camp victims and survivors.

This is followed by three sacred pieces: Jazz Psalms-vibrant prayer
settings for singers and jazz combo that combine jazz rhythms,
sonorities and vocal styles with echoes of traditional liturgical
melodies; and excerpts from two choral compositions that combine the
enduring spirit of the Sabbath liturgy with electronically synthesized sounds: Shabbat for Today, a spirited setting of the Sabbath evening service, and Shiru Ladonai (Sing to God), a more lyrical approach to that liturgy. Both services utilize Moog synthesizers to provide the instrumental parts. The composer conducts all four works; noted actor Harry Goz is the narrator in Shabbat for Today; and the vocal soloists
include Cantor Howard M. Stahl, Amy Goldstein, Mary Catherine George,
Larry Picard, Matthew Walley, and Lisa Vroman, performing with the
Kingsley Singers.