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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