 MAY 14 • 2020 | 35

music

Virtual Kaddish

San Francisco opera musicians
join forces to offer online music.

JULIE SMITH YOLLES CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A 

few days before 
Passover, Aryeh 
Nussbaum Cohen and 
Ronny Michael Greenberg were 
talking on the phone about glu-
ten-free matzah, charoset and 
brisket recipes for their upcom-
ing remote seders. The two 
friends live near each other in 
San Francisco and met through 
the San Francisco Opera’
s Adler 
Fellowship. 
Greenberg, 31, is a pianist 
and opera coach with the San 
Francisco Opera. Cohen, 26, is 
a freelance opera singer. Both 
say their Jewish upbringings 
forged their career paths and led 
to their most recent collabora-
tion — a virtual performance 
of French composer Maurice 
Ravel’
s “Kaddish.
” 
“When Aryeh and I first met, 
we just bonded musically and 
culturally, and this collaboration 
is embracing who we are as Jews 
right now,
” says Greenberg, who 
attended Jewish elementary 
school in Montreal. He grew 
up speaking fluent Hebrew, 
French and English, and he took 
classes in Italian and German 
in high school. “That and learn-
ing songs and prayers taught 
by my Hebrew teachers were 
an integral component to my 
vocal coaching and collaborative 

piano performances.
” 
The Kaddish piece is the sec-
ond in a new virtual series he 
created during the pandemic 
called “Songs from a Distance.
” 
 “Because it’
s a very somber 
piece, we thought it would fit 
the tone of the world we’
re liv-
ing in right now,
” said Cohen, 
a countertenor whose fiancée 
grew up in Kalamazoo, while 
he grew up in Brooklyn and 
aspired to be a cantor/rabbi. “It’
s 
a complicated piece, and it’
s a 
whole new process of figuring 
out this new ‘
normal’
 medium 
of putting together an electronic 
performance while not being in 
the same physical space.
”
Cohen and Greenberg 
rehearsed over Zoom. Cohen 
recorded his vocals a capella 
in his apartment and sent it 
to Greenberg, who played the 
accompaniment on his baby 
grand piano in his home record-
ing studio. Greenberg then edit-
ed the two parts together. 
“This piece is very improvi-
satory, in line with the cantorial 
tradition of having a flow and 
cadence,
” said Cohen, who sang 
the Kaddish at his grandfather’
s 
funeral last year.
To view their performance, 
search for “Kaddish by Maurice 
Ravel” on YouTube. 

DARIO ACOSTA
DARIO ACOSTA

COURTESY OF RONNY GREENBERG

Ronny Greenberg
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen

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