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Freedom Sings from page 37
Dr. Gerald Laker and Irving Laker
made diversity an important aspect of
this performance, especially among the
cast" •
Featured with the DSO will be the 120-
member Dearborn Vanguard Voices Choir
and, from Toronto, soloists Margarita
Boshoer, a well-known Russian soprano,
and Inga Filippova of the Canadian Opera
Company.
Also joining Cantor Finkelstein on stage
will be Cantor Stephen Dubov, formerly
of Congregation Chaye Olam; Cantor
Michael Smolash and cantorial solo-
ist Neil Michaels of Temple Israel; and
renowned Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira,
who graduated from the Juilliard School
in New York.
Maestro Yoel Levi, a native of Israel
and a graduate of the Tel Aviv Academy
Creative Force
Cantor Finkelstein
brings innovations
to Shaarey Zedek.
Curt Schleier
Special to the Jewish News
C
antor Meir Finkelsetin has made
several changes — a few of them con-
troversial — at Congregation Shaarey
Zedek since joining the Oakland County-based
synagogue last fall.
The innovations have included changes in
liturgical melodies and shortened services.
He also has moved the 12-member synagogue
choir from behind the curtain on the bimah
to a position near him, and he now leads the
choir while davening with the congregation. His
request to put a piano keyboard on the bimah is
pending board approval.
Shaarey Zedek President Gregg Orley of
Bloomfield Hills approves of the bold new
moves. "I think leading the choir on the bimah
is wonderful," he said. "Also, the board decided
to let the cantor experiment with a keyboard
and other musical changes once a month at
Sabbath services starting this fall."
40
June 22 • 20U('-.
of Music, will conduct Liberation. He is
principal guest conductor of the Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra and chief con-
ductor of the Flemish Radio Orchestra,
as well as music director emeritus of the
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
"Yoel Levi's conducting will have a tre-
mendous.impact on this performance of
Liberation',' said Cantor Finkelstein.
Introducing various movements of the
cantata with dramatic readings — and
reflecting its diversity — will be Rabbi
Eric Yanoff of Congregation Shaarey
Zedek and Rabbis Marla Hornsten and
Jennifer Tisdale of Temple Israel; the Rev.
Kenneth Flowers and Dr. Ronald Turner,
both of Detroit, representing the African-
American community; a representative
of the Armenian people, who underwent
a Holocaust-type genocide in 1915;
two veterans, who were part of the first
U.S. military group to liberate the death
camps in 1945; and a Holocaust survivor
— Henrietta Weisberg of Bloomfield
Hills. She was freed from Buchenwald in
1945.
Weisberg and her husband, Alvin,
Shaarey Zedek members for more than 60
years, donated $100,000, and Irving and
Beverly Laker of Bloomfield Hills and Dr.
Gerald and Elaine Laker of Beverly Hills
donated another $100,000 to underwrite
the cost of Liberation.
Cantor Finkelstein also has organized a youth
choir, taken complete charge of the bar and
bat mitzvah program, started a concert series
as part of the synagogue Cultural Connection,
and even leads a popular sing-along with his
keyboard on Tuesday nights at Shaarey Zedek's
B'nai Israel Center in West Bloomfield.
Anyone can attend and sing Yiddish and
Broadway songs with him. "My biggest chal-
lenge now is finding enough time to give my
attention to everyone," he said.
Cantor Finkelstein joined Shaarey Zedek
after two years at Congregation Beth Tzdek in
Toronto, leaving "to seek a new place to better
myself," he explained. The Cantors Assembly
Placement Bureau linked him to Shaarey Zedek,
where Cantor Chaim Najman was retiring after
25 years to assume emeritus status.
"I thank Cantor Najman for being one of my
biggest boosters and recommending me as his
successor," said Cantor Finkelstein, who before
his stint in Toronto was cantor for 18 years at
Sinai Temple in Westwood, Calif., a Los Angeles
suburb, where he enjoyed a successful career as
a Hollywood composer-arranger.
He scored numerous TV shows, including
episodes of Dallas and Falcon Crest, plus
many TV movies-of-the-week. He collaborated
with Steven Spielberg, composing music for the
famed director's Visual History Foundation's
Henrietta and Alvin Weisberg
Contemporary Composer
Impressed by Cantor Finkelstein's "enthu-
siasm and vision," Irving Laker launched
a Musical Renaissance Task Force after
the cantor arrived at Shaarey Zedek, with
a goal of $150,000 in donations from con-
gregants to fund "high-caliber new musi-
cal programming:' he said.
"I'm happy to say that most of the
members we've contacted have contrib-
uted, leading up to Liberation. All of us
have been thrilled by Cantor Finkelstein's
innovative musical concepts and inspi-
rational leadership at our Shabbat and
holiday religious services!"
Task force funds covered recent con-
certs by violinist Shapira, who will return
to perform in Liberation, and pianist
Kirill Gerstein, both Carnegie Artists of
the Year.
Liberation premiered in 1995 at the
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles
with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra before a standing-room-only
crowd of 3,200. Jewish actor Billy Crystal
was one of the narrators, and singer
Melissa Manchester one of the soloists.
The producer was Cantor Chayim
Frenkel of Kehillat Israel, a 1,000-family
synagogue in Pacific Palisades, Calif. A
nationally recognized producer-arranger,
Cantor Frenkel also serves as technical
adviser for movies, including the cur-
rent film about a bar mitzvah boy and
his family titled Keeping Up With the
Steins.
"Meir is one of the best-documented
composers of contemporary Jewish music
in the world;
his com-
positions
are sung in
synagogues
everywhere,"
said Cantor
Frenkel.
"He has
transformed
synagogue
music for
modern
Conductor Yoel Levi
services
by adding
the appropriate chords and modes to
fuse ancient Jewish music with modern
American music.
"He is pure talent." E
award-winning documentary Survivors of
the Shoah.
"I think Steven chose me because he
liked the fact that I'm a Holocaust survi-
vor's son," he said. "He was wonderful to
work with, and it was a great experience."
Israeli Born
Born in Tel Aviv, Meir Finkelstein, at age 14,
became one of the youngest chazzans in
Europe at a small synagogue in Glasgow,
Scotland. He and his older brother, Aryeh,
now a cantor in Boston, had accompanied
their father at services when the fam-
ily immigrated to England and the elder
Finkelstein, now deceased, took a cantorial
job at a London synagogue.
When Meir was 18, he became chazzan
at London's prestigious Golders Green
Cantor Meir Finkelstein: "My biggest
Synagogue. He graduated from the Royal
challenge
is finding enough time to give my
College of Music with a degree in singing,
attention
to
everyone."
piano and composition.
Cantor Finkelstein came to America at
the age of 23 to join Beth Hillel Congregation
it, but you constantly think about it. I compose
in Wilmette, Ill., a Chicago suburb. He then
when
I get the inspiration."
headed to California, where he composed more
Cantor
Finkelstein lives in Huntington Woods
than 100 liturgical settings.
with
his
wife,
Monica, and two children, Noah, 7,
Of his music-writing prowess, he explained:
and
Emily,
6.
He
has two children from a previ-
"You sort of become a slave to music and
ous
marriage,
Nadia,
31, and Adam, 21.
composing. There's no special time of day to do