Cantors on Record
Program Guide
The Cantors Assembly in partnership with Milken Archive of Jewish Music and the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music presents Cantors on Record. Beginning Monday, October 26 at 8:00 PM ET, the program will feature live interviews with the artists and the music they recorded along with archival photos. It will be hosted by Hazzan Elizabeth Shammash and Dr. Mark Kligman, Director of The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music and Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
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Schedule and Guests
October 26, 2020: Introduction to the Milken Archive with Curator Jeff Janeczko, Ph.D.
November 2, 2020
Alberto Mizrahi
Born in Greece to a Sephardi family that emigrated soon afterward to the United States, Cantor Alberto Mizrahi has distinguished himself as an exponent of the Ashkenazi cantorial tradition. He is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Cantors Institute (now the H. L. Miller Cantorial School), where he studied with Hazzan David Kusevitsky as well as with numerous other leading figures in Jewish music.
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A Spiritual Legacy
Fathers and Jewish Music: Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi's Story
November 9, 2020
Meir Finkelstein
Cantor Meir Finkelstein was born in Israel in 1951. His family emigrated to England when he was four years old, after his father, Cantor Zvi Finkelstein, accepted a position at one of London’s premier congregations. Meir soon joined his older brother Aryeh in accompanying their father at services, and the three went on to release a number of liturgical recordings. At fourteen, he became the youngest cantor in Europe when he took his first professional post at a synagogue in Glasgow.
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November 16, 2020
Roz Barak
Cantor Roslyn Jhunever Barak has served Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco since 1987, a year after her graduation and investiture from the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. She received her vocal training at the Manhattan School of Music in her native New York City and has been the recipient of a number of awards.
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November 23, 2020
Elizabeth Shammash
The daughter of a mother with roots in Latvian Jewry, and a Baghdad-born father of Babylonian Jewish tradition who emigrated to America, Cantor Elizabeth Shammash earned a bachelor’s degree in Italian studies from Brown University (including a year of study at the University of Bologna in Italy), an artist diploma from Boston University’s Opera Institute, and a master’s degree in music and voice performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
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November 30, 2020
Simon Spiro
Cantor Simon Spiro was born in London to refugees from German-occupied Europe. His father became a noted actor-singer in the Yiddish theater of London’s East End, and his mother was an accomplished singer. Spiro’s path to his own calling emerged also from his family’s cantorial tradition. He has become a leading interpreter of cantorial art, with a repertoire ranging from classical renditions of traditional European hazzanut to popular Yiddish song, and from contemporary Jewish musical styles to popular entertainment.
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December 7, 2020
Charles Osborne
Cantor Charles Osborne had his first singing engagement at twelve as a boy alto. He attended the Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut, studying there with Cantor Arthur Koret. He also earned a degree and received his cantorial ordination from the Cantors Institute (now the H.L. Miller Cantorial School) of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, in New York. Since 1987, he has served the pulpit of Temple Emanuel in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
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December 14, 2020
Raphael Frieder
Cantor Raphael Frieder was born in Israel and studied singing and choral conducting at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. He has performed with the New Israeli Opera as well as with all of Israel’s major orchestras, under such prominent conductors as Zubin Mehta, Gary Bertini, and Roger Norrington. Leonard Bernstein invited him to sing in the world premiere of his Arias and Barcarolles (version for two voices and piano) in 1989 in Tel Aviv.
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December 21, 2020
Aaron Bensoussan
Born in Mogador (now Essaouira, near Agadir), Morocco, Cantor Aaron Bensoussan is the scion of an illustrious family in the history of Moroccan Sephardi Jewry. His paternal grandfather, Rabbi Hayyim David Bensoussan, was the Chief Dayan (rabbi and rabbinical judge) of Morocco, and his great-grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Bensoussan, also a dayan as well as a kabbalist, is thought to have been a direct descendant of the medieval rabbi Yehuda ben Soussan, who reputedly was a teacher of Moses Maimonides.
Jump to: Schedule and Guests | About the Sponsors
About the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music
The Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music was established in 2017 to advance the field. Building upon the work of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music (founded in 1990), it serves as an academic partner to the archive.
About the Cantor's Assembly
The Cantors Assembly promotes the profession of the Cantorate, serving our members and their congregations by supporting our colleagues in their roles as vibrant, engaging, vital clergy and musical leaders.