Answering the Call: An Interview with Emma Lutz

Emma Lutz is Senior Cantor at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles. She received her Master's of Sacred Music degree from the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Prior to joining the cantorate, Cantor Lutz worked as a soloist and teacher for synagogues throughout California's Bay Area and was a performer with numerous theater companies.

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Where were you born and what was your upbringing like? 

I was born in Walnut Creek, California. We belonged to B'nai Tikvah, a Reform synagogue that my parents helped found. My dad grew up as a Conservative Jew and my mom is a Jew by choice. So, being a part of this Reform community was a really good fit for them and for our family. 

Did you have a lot of music in your life as a child?

I have to confess that I loved synagogue music as a kid. I was the kind of kid who just loved Hebrew school. My family went to services every Friday night, and I knew every melody. I was in the junior choir my entire childhood and youth. But my mom also tells me that when I was about eleven months old, I hadn't spoken a word yet and I was sitting in the backseat of the car and started singing Bobby McFerrin's “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” So, I really started my life singing.

My parents loved rock and folk music. I started doing musical theater when I was five. I loved Broadway, Gilbert and Sullivan, AND light opera. In becoming a cantor, a lot of the things I loved and had been my hobbies became my profession.

Did you get any formal music education in elementary school or high school?

I went to a great public school in the Bay Area that really made music education a priority. I played the saxophone, we had choir, and we had dance programs. I also took voice and piano lessons in elementary school. So, I had a pretty good musical foundation in my early youth thanks to my parents and to the California public school system.

Were you active in high school in band or choir?

I got my first lead in a musical in eighth grade. From then on, it was two, three, or four musicals a year, plus one or two straight plays. I was in band and choir, and was dancing ballet, jazz and tap. So, music really permeated my life.

Where did you go to college and what did you study there?

I went to UC Davis as a religious studies and music major. They had a Hebrew program, an Israel abroad program, a religious studies program, and a well-funded, but under-populated, music and theater program. It seemed like a really great fit for me.

How did you decide to pursue becoming a cantor?

I think, like so many Jewish stories, my story doesn’t really start with me. It starts a few generations back. There were women before me who were really active with their Judaism and cared about synagogue life and ritual. My great-grandmother was a founding member of a Conservative synagogue in Long Beach, California. My grandmother, in 1939, was the first woman to become a bat mitzvah on the West Coast in the Conservative movement.

Cantor Lutz at her installation as Senior Cantor in Stephen Wise Temple, March 2022.

And there were men, too. My mom’s great-grandfather (on her father’s side), coincidentally, was a rabbi in the village that my dad's paternal family is also from in Poland. My dad was the temple president when I had my bat mitzvah. So, in some ways, it’s in my blood—lots of people who cared about Jewish community and ritual. Being a cantor is a combination of ritual, performance and teaching. I had a cantor that I just loved growing up, Cantor Steven Richards. He's an amazing teacher, an amazing piano player, a great singer and a great composer. He really planted all the seeds for the cantorate for me.

And yet, it wasn't until he retired and my synagogue hired a female cantor, Rabbi-Cantor Jennie Chabon, that it occurred to me that I could actually have that career. Cantor Richards always gave me space on the bimah, but I never really saw myself in the role until I saw Cantor Chabon do it. It was this manifestation of something that I may have dreamed about subconsciously just appear before my eyes. She really mentored me and supported me in the same way that Cantor Richards did.

And while I loved performing, I always preferred singing at temple because I got to sing as myself. I got to carry my grandma and my Baba Alice and my parents—everybody was always with me. I never felt alone. I never felt like I was putting on a show. It was very easy for me to feel authentic. I found that to be really meaningful.

Have any of your teachers been especially influential for you?

I would say two people in particular had a really strong influence on me. The first was Cantor Jack Mendelsohn. He's an amazing worship leader. He really encouraged me, even though I had never done any cantorial nusaḥ, growing up in a Reform synagogue. He coached me and took the extra time because he knew I had the interest and the musical foundation.

Dr. Mark Kligman was my favorite teacher at Hebrew Union College. He's at UCLA now and is my dear, dear friend and mentor. He taught us a lot about liturgy and modes that really opened my eyes to the musical and liturgical foundations of prayer.

What were your first pulpit experiences as a cantor?

My first solo cantorial job was as a first-year student at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem; I had a student pulpit in East Jerusalem in the West Bank. Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians lived peacefully in neighborhoods together. I led High Holy Day and Shabbat services. That was really my first cantorial job. When I came stateside, I had one student pulpit in Reading, Pennsylvania, then I spent three years at the Union Temple of Brooklyn. They didn’t have a cantor. So, I was really the full-time cantor and was mentored by the amazing Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman. She was my boss, but she was also my mentor and my friend. And Linda has perfect pitch. Working for a rabbi who can understand everything that's happening musically was a lot of pressure, but she really encouraged me and pushed me and always helped me be my best. That was an amazing job. School was wonderful, but what I did at Union Temple, was really the foundation for my next step in the cantorate.

What was your first pulpit after HUC?

I've been the cantor at Stephen Wise Temple now for eight years, for the past three years as senior cantor. It’s been my only job and it’s been wonderful.

Kol Nidrei (arr. Paul Discount) featuring Cantor Emma Lutz and the Stephen Wise Temple singers led by Dr. Iris Levine.

Can you speak a little bit about life in the pulpit with two young children and an active career?

Having a pulpit job can be all-consuming, and having a career that is a calling can be very overwhelming because you don’t always know where to set the boundaries. But on the flip side, every single day I get to do things that I absolutely love. I get to be with people in challenging moments and use music as a tool for healing. My older daughter is in pre-school where I work. So even if I’m working 60–65 hours a week, I can pop over to her classroom and have lunch with her. I can step out of my office on Monday mornings and take my two-year-old to a class at the parenting center. My family is really a part of the community.

Cantor Lutz with husband, Rabbi Adam Lutz, and their children.

Could you share some experiences of turning liturgical texts into prayer, and what was special or meaningful to you during those experiences?

Several moments come to mind. It’s so humbling to be able to not only lead my community, but to be able to sing every day and participate in a career that, 50 some years ago, would have been closed off to me, and it's so deeply my calling.

I had a student a couple of years ago, a bat mitzvah student who is the daughter of a very famous musician. She was feeling a lot of pressure to perform at her bat mitzvah. She is not someone with a big personality, but she was really connecting to the prayers and poetry of it all. And she also studies piano. So I said, “Why don’t you play something at the service?” And she was like, “I can’t do that. My dad’s going to be there. My friends are going to be there. All these people are going to be there.” But we worked on it. And she played a prayer in the service, and she really made it her own. So, it was exceptional to be her teacher and to know that our time together allowed her to feel safe enough to do that.

Then, on the morning of October 7, 2023, it was Simchat Torah, which is a cantor's favorite day because the High Holiday season has successfully ended. I remember, I had a Tot Shabbat service at 9 a.m., and a bar mitzvah at 10 a.m.. And that morning, my phone was just going off with all the notifications coming in about the attacks in Israel. It was so overwhelming. Everybody was crying. And the prayer couldn’t really uplift us, but it could hold us. We could be together in song and prayer and community, and just experience the heaviness of our grief together. I stayed up that whole night writing a program with some people from the Jewish Federation. We had over 2,000 people that Sunday night, October 8, at Stephen Wise in our sanctuary. We would have had more if the fire marshal would have let us. We needed community. We needed prayer. We needed music. And we sang the simplest of songs, like the classic Oseh shalom, and it was exceptionally prayerful. There are lots of jokes about cantors and their egos. But we had about sixteen cantors that evening up on the Stephen Wise Temple bimah together. And we sang in one voice. Nobody asked for a solo. Nobody needed their own moment. We held each other, and it was such a gift in such a painful time.

Can you comment further about issues you're very passionate about, not only Israel, but social justice and women's issues and how you've been dealing with those these days?

It is a challenging time to be any kind of leader, with the political climate in our country—and around the world—so deeply divided. In our synagogue community, I strive to co-create space for meaningful dialogue and even disagreement, always guided by the principle of shalom b'bayit [peace in the house].

Since October 7th, the heart of my cantorate has been dedicated to crafting ritual spaces for healing—spaces that hold both our collective grief and our enduring hope. I pray daily for the safety of the hostages, for an end to the war, and for the wisdom and courage to envision and work toward the, God willing, days after this war—when we can refocus on building a long-term path to coexistence.

I often return to the Talmudic teaching that “the heart can have many rooms.” We can hold multiple truths at once: our commitment to Zionism can exist alongside the hope for lasting peace and enduring coexistence in our shared Holy Land, even if that may not be possible in this exact moment. Ultimately, my faith and my hope guide every decision I make—in my leadership, in the shaping of communal ritual, and in my personal practice as both a Jew and a human being.

Are you a fan of any particular composer or songwriter today?

My rabbi, Yoshi Zweiback, is an incredible songwriter. I also have a phenomenal music director, Dr. Tali Tadmor. The three of us really enjoy putting new pieces together. I feel really lucky to work with such amazing artists and to commission those projects.

Do you have any advice for people who are considering this career, particularly from your experience being a woman in the cantorate?

It’s important to be your authentic self and you let your congregation see that. But don’t make it about yourself. Being a cantor is not about you; it’s about your community. As long as you’re treated with care, the focus really should be on the work. I think when you focus on the community, they’ll give you respect. That’s been my experience. Maybe it’s a privilege. But my community has been incredibly gracious and accepting of my leadership.

This interview is part of our Voices of Change: 50 Years of Women in the American Cantorate series.

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