Don't Pass Over This Message
Holiday Greetings and a Quick Update
Shalom, Beyond the Music Readers! This brief missive comes while Jewish houses are filled with sweet smells, bitter herbs, and crunchy matzah as the Passover holiday fast approaches. Read below for three special and timely updates!
1. Next Week’s Newsletter Leaves Egypt….on Tuesday
The first two festival days of Passover run from Saturday night through Monday night, on which Jews traditionally refrain from work (it’s enough to stay up late with seders and go to synagogue in the morning). So despite the Lord’s injunction not to tarry when leaving Egypt, Beyond the Music will be sent out a day late on Tuesday morning, to avoid the Jewish holiday.
2. A Welcome to New Subscribers
Beyond the Music has been swiftly risen to the History leaderboard on Substack (#87!) with a growing community of over eleven-hundred fellow readers. Since there’s been a lot of ink under the bridge since we launched in July 2023 here’s some throwback material that might particularly interest new subscribers:
i. Jewish Early Music (that thing I’m writing my PhD about…)
The Matriarchs of Jewish Early Music - in praise of three contemporary performers of Jewish Music in Europe who are leading the way.
The Cantor of Leipzig - Musings on Jews & J.S. Bach which struck a chord.
The Jewish Baroque - The ins and outs of seventeenth- and eighteenth century European Jewish music.
Cantors, Opera, and Dancing Maidens - The relationship between synagogue music and Germany’s first public opera house.
Music Theory & Mythical Sloths - On the Jewishness of music theory.
ii. Top Readers (things that went viral)
The Galaxy of Melody - A eulogy for my teacher, Cantor Jack Kessler z’’l.
Blood and Soil - This Yom HaShoah meditation on music and nationalism revealed how Franz Liszt prophesied both the Holocaust and the State of Israel.
Breaking News for Musical Jews - A newly rediscovered sixteenth-century manuscript whose contents may forever change cantorial and klezmer history.
On Cantorial Education - My report on the fall of a liberal cantorial school and how to re-envision the cantorate from a religious perspective.
There’s a Dinosaur - A delightful podcast on this tot-shabbat classic with its original innovator, Andi Joseph.
3. See you in LA?
For West Coast readers, you are invited to mark your calendars and come meet me in person , as I am presenting as part of two exciting and unprecedented musical programs in Los Angeles at the end of this month:
(A) Sunday, April 27th, 1:00pm-4:30pm — Early Sounds of Jewish Music Symposium at UCLA’s Lani Hall. Concert following, 6:30pm-8:00pm
This is a totally unique, half-day Jewish Early Music festival featuring audience participation, new research, and conversation on Jewish Early Music performance, culminating in a concert featuring the UCLA Early Music Ensemble.
I will be joined by my colleagues Mark Kligman, Paul Feller-Simmons, Marylin Winkle, and even my own PhD Advisor/Jewish-Early-Music Matriarch, Diana Matut, who is flying all the way in from Germany. If you like early music and are curious about a ton of repertoire and research in this burgeoning field, this is the place to be. You can read the whole program outline here.
(B) Tuesday, April 29th, 7:00pm: Secrets of the Cantor — the Mysterious Origins of Hazzanut Revealed at Sinai Temple— This is my newest experiment in edutainment, focused on the ever mysterious question of how the cantorial arts came to be, from medieval Europe until today. My PhD work has revealed many new sources and insights, which I will present in speech and song, together with my colleague, Sinai Temple’s Cantor Marcus Feldman and its Music Director Benjamin Fingerhut. Our program will also begin with a marking of Yom HaZikkaron, recognizing Israel's fallen soldiers and celebrating the undying song of the Jewish soul which endures in their memory. RSVP here!
Wishing all who celebrate a zisn Pesach — a sweet Passover!