YOU
look forward to a few traditional
favorites, like Passover's "Chad Gadya,"
the evening will include a piece from
Broadway's The Secret Garden to honor
Tu b'Shevat, a popular rock song that
somehow becomes a Purim parody, and
a Tom Lehrer number that imagines
a wintery Jewish holiday in one of the
country's warmest climates.
This year's concert, with musical
direction by a Detroit legend, jazz pia-
nist Cliff Monear, also marks the first
time the cantors and cantorial soloists
themselves will be the honorees of a
major event.
The 12 men and women performing
To Everything There Is a Season come
from diverse backgrounds.
Temple Israel's Michael Smolash
has songs included on the Union for
Reform Judaism's biennial CDs, and
Neil Michaels is a graduate of Juilliard
who has appeared at Carnegie Hall and
the Metropolitan Opera.
Earl Berris of Congregation B'nai
Moshe is a composer and registered
music therapist. Congregation Beth
Shalom's Samuel Greenbaum teaches
the congregation's youth and adult
choirs, and Temple Beth El's Rachel
Gottlieb Kalmowitz is a district winner
of the Metropolitan Opera National
Council auditions.
Daniel Gross of Adat Shalom
Synagogue is the composer of I Believe
— A Shoah Requiem, which premiered
at Orchestra Hall. Congregation Shaarey
and I suppressed it. I told them I just
couldn't do it, but it wouldn't go away;
it kept tugging at my sleeve."
When the BBC came calling
recently, he recalled, "I had to have a
crack at it"
The result is a five-hour meditation
on the ups and downs of the Jewish
people over 5,000 years, as seen
through a series of narratives of great
dramatic appeal.
Schama said, "My father's family
called themselves 'Sephardic trash:
The family story is that my great-
great-grandparents were spice sellers
in Izmir [the ancient city of Smyrna,
now in Turkey]. My mother's family —
Litvaks from Kovno-Gubernia — were
in lumber like so many Jews in that
part of the world, shlepping timber
across the fields. But my parents were
both first-generation British-born"
One thing that united these
disparate clans was "the habit of
Zedek's David Propis has recorded more
than a dozen albums, and Leonard
Gutman was a child when he began
singing with the cantor's choir at
Congregation Ahavas Achim in Detroit.
Frank Lanzkron-Tamarazo is also
the owner of Chazzano Coffee Roasters;
Pamela Schiffer of Congregation Shaarey
Zedek in East Lansing holds a Solo
Recitalist Fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts; and Penny
Steyer of Temple Shir Shalom is a produc-
er, musical director of the Zamir Chorale
and has recorded with Buddy Rich.
And now completing her master's
degree in Jewish education, Tiffany
Green, cantorial soloist at Temple Shir
Shalom, was 12 when she made her
first professional recording. Today, she
says that she loves "making music with
other people. Performing is fun, but
with music, the best part is creating
with others" ❑
Elizabeth Applebaum is marketing director
at the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit.
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The Michigan Board of Cantors
Concert takes place at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 27, at Temple
Israel in West Bloomfield.
$32 JCC members/$42
nonmembers. (248) 661-1900;
www.theberman.org .
storytelling" the historian recounted.
And that, he said, is what he brings
to a topic that has been essayed many
times before.
"Storytelling and new scholarship
— that's what I bring to the subject"
he declared. "On one level, I'm just a
ventriloquist for scholars who have
been doing new research. I wanted
to write a Jewish history that was
narrative. I didn't want to do a chain
of texts and philosophies; I'm not good
at that.
"What I can do is introduce readers
and viewers to the Jews of Elephantine,
[a fifth-century B.C.E. island military
outpost in the middle of the Nile], and
David of Oxford, [a contemporary of
Richard the Lionhearted]."
He concluded, "I think that's
worth doing. The [Jewish] story is
so inspiring and rich and digressive
and surprising. When I was asked, I
thought, 'Why not?"'
❑
The Story of the Jews will be broadcast Tuesday, March 25, from 8-10
p.m. (episodes 1 and 2) and Tuesday, April 1, from 8-11 p.m. (episodes 3, 4
and 5) on PBS stations, including Detroit Public Television-Channel 56.
The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 B.C.-1492 A.D., the first
of two volumes by Simon Schama, is now available from Ecco Press; the
second volume, When Words Fail (1492-Present Day) is due out this fall.
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