NEW COMPOSITIONS SWAMP INAUGURAL FESTIVAL INVITATION by SHALSHELET
169 SUBMISSIONS FROM 5 COUNTRIES AND 19 U.S. STATES THRILL SHALSHELET BOARD
One year ago, the Chevy Chase, Maryland-based organization devoted to
finding and sharing new Jewish liturgical music didn?t even exist.
Today, it is relishing the task of selecting the best from among 169
pieces of music written by composers from 5 countries and 19 U.S.
states.
?We are absolutely thrilled,? said Dr. Norma Brooks, vice president
of Shalshelet: The Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music. ?A
festival highlighting new music for congregational singing was just
an idea, a dream. Where would the music come from? How would
composers find us? Well, they did, in a very big way,? she said,
pointing to a three-inch-thick stack of submitted sheet music and the
four accompanying review CDs.
A new CD by HaOman Hai Ensemble called Kulmus Hanefesh: A musical journey into the Hassidic niggun explores the integration of Jewish folk niggunim and instrumental music from eastern Europe into contemporary Israeli art music. Members of the group include Baruch Brenner, Andre Hajdu, Yair Harel, Nori Jacoby, Jonathan Niv, Eitan Kirsch, and Matti Kovler. Participants are: Avishai Fisz, Roni Mosenson-Nelken and Itamar Ringel
The Boston Jewish Film Festival and The MFA Film Program are pleased
There are some memorable albums that reflect a newer and older generation in popular music, Natalie Cole singing a “duet” with her father, electronically created using his original vocal. Here, Linda Hirschhorn revisits not a parent, but herself as the child of the parent, or, maybe vice versa. Putting down harmonies, and fuller tracks with some of her older songs recorded in the 1980s. Hirschhorn, along with some of her friends and daughter, revisits not only herself, but a generational change in American contemporary music. And why do we need more now? Is simplicity not enough? Here, depth in meaning is just as necessary to the spiritual and emotional needs of the generation today, and Hirschhorn gathers her own strength to capture that in a variety of styles.… 
“Beyond Boundaries: Music and Israel @ 60” looks at the Present-Day Complexities of Israeli Music
Feel the beat of today’s young Israel in PercaDu‘s performance of Avner Dorman‘s percussion concerto Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! Don’t miss Adi Morag, Tomer Yarivm, Zubin Mehta, and the Philharmonic on this night of exhilarating music-making. A Hear and Now Performance.
Oxford University Press has released the scholarly work of Dr. Tina Fruhauf, The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture. The press descriptions states that the book “examines the powerful but often overlooked presence of the organ in synagogue music and the musical life of German-speaking Jewish communities. Tina Frühauf expertly chronicles the history of the organ in Jewish culture from the earliest references in the Talmud through the 19th century, when it had established a firm and lasting presence in Jewish sacred and secular spaces in central Europe. Frühauf demonstrates how the introduction of the organ into German synagogues was part of the significant changes which took place in Judaism after the Enlightenment, and posits the organ as a symbol of the division of the Jewish community into Orthodox and Reform congregations.… 
Free Synagogue of Flushing will present a special