This was the 16th European Cantors Convention
Rumbach Synagogue, Budapest
December 2024 - Kislev 5785
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The programme 'as delivered' is here
The photo gallery is here
Go to first time delegate. Trevor Toube's, impressions
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European Cantors again teamed up with The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) to present the 16th European Cantors Convention in Budapest, Hungary from Wednesday 4th to Sunday 8th December 2024 (3rd to 7th Kislev 5785) at the Rumbach Street Synagogue, Budapest.
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The Convention was also supported by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience and the Mickey Katz Endowed Chair, UCLA and the Jewish Music Institute SOAS University of London
The themes this year were Connecting the Shaliach with the Tzibbur and focusing on Cantorial Training in Europe.
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The interational presenters and panellists included: Cantors: Shmuel Barzilai (Vienna); Isidoro Abramowicz (Berlin); Matthew Austerklein (Akron, Ohio); Natanel Baram (Los Angeles); Leah Frey-Rabine (Nidatal Germany); Sarah Myerson (New York); Paul Heller (London); Deborah Katchko-Gray (Ridgefield, CT); Beny Maissner (Toronto); Abbie Strauss (Palm Beach Gardens, Florida); and Jalda Rebling (Berlin). Plus tutors and students from the Cantorial Schools of Hungary, France and Geiger College Potsdam
We were also treated to Musicologists Dr Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka (Kracow) and Dr Malcolm Miller (London); and Archivists Amalia Kedem (Israeli National, Library Jerusalem) and Judith Pinnolis (Boston).
Plus international composers and arrangers Max Stern (Jerusalem); Charles Heller (Toronto); Michael Ochs (Berlin); the Kecskemet Singing Circle, Hungarian Chamber Choir conductor, Peter Erdei and Orchestral ensemble arranged by Professor Mark Kligman (Los Angeles).
As always, the Convention was open to practising cantors and all interested in the music of the synagogue. The programme featured an exciting programme of lectures, panel discussions, masterclasses, choral workshops, open mics, and concerts with some 65 people attending.
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The themes we focused on this time were:
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Connecting the Shaliach with the Tzibbur – the prayer leader with the community
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We also looked at Cantorial Training for Today and where it is happening around the world
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And we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary and tributed Cantor Naftali Herstik ז"ל who passed away in September.
In addition:
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We began with an orchestral ensemble backing International Cantors Shmuel Barzilai, Nati Baram and Isidoro Ambramowicz on the Wednesday evening.
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Maestro Max Stern again worked with the Hungarian choir who sang his Prayer for Israel and Holocaust composition at the final Gala Concert on the Sunday
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And there were the usual masterclasses, choral workshops, open mics, and concerts and a truly wonderful Shabbat.​​​​
We are uploading video from the convention over the next few days and weeks. Check out our YouTube channel for the latest uploads!
The programme 'as delivered' is here
The photo gallery is here
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Trevor Toube of London, one of our
first-time delegates to the convention, writes with his impressions:
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This meeting was held in Budapest to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the deportation and murder of well over half of the Jewish population of Hungary in 1944. It was also in memory of the cantor, Naftali Herstik, who died earlier in the year.
The Rumbach Synagogue is not the largest in Budapest. The one in Dohany Street seats over 3000 and is impressive. However, the Rumbach has fairly recently been restored by the government and functions as a concert venue as well as a synagogue. It is very beautiful!
The ECA has a mission to be inclusive, so the participants included a number of women cantors, most - but not all - from the USA. There were also musicologists, ba’alei tefilla, choir singers, spouses - and hangers-on, like me. I did ask how many attendees there were and were told that ‘we don’t count Jews’ [a sound halachic position!]. However, because the number of locals who took part were not all recorded, it is safe to say there were something between 60 and 80 of us.
What we experienced was five incredibly intensive days, exposed to a wide range of Jewish worship. On the first day, December 4th, registration was at 3 p.m., followed at 3.20 by three consecutive sessions on Hungarian cantors, the nature of Nusach, and a final one, led by American cantor, Sarah Myerson, which had us chanting nigunim while essentially doing the conga!
Then we had the first one-hour rehearsal of the three choral ensembles. Choir A, led by Sarah Myerson, was an interactive group which in practice, although not by design, had only women members. Group B, led by American pop composer, Michael Hunter Ochs, included guitars, and was distinctly not ‘traditional’. Group C, which I joined, was very much a traditional male shul choir, and went on to accompany a large number of chazonim in the Friday evening and Shabbat morning services.
That took us to dinner at 6.45, followed by a notionally two-hour chazanut concert, featuring a number of local singers and a small orchestra as well as a large number of the participating cantors. Like every other evening of the conference, the 10 p.m. finish time was considerably exceeded!
Except for Shabbat, the other days started with Shacharit at 8 a.m. [Orthodox, although on some occasions an alternative Participatory service was also available], followed by breakfast. By 9.15, we were busily occupied.
On December 5th, we had a talk on 50 years of female cantors in the USA and one talk on getting congregants to join in the singing. A short coffee break was followed by a 90-minute panel discussion on recruiting and training cantors, with contributions from Potsdam, Paris, Budapest, and the largely online EAJL. Lunch, then three more lectures: on ‘engaging the unengaged’; on whether Nusach is dying; and on the legacy of cantor and teacher Jack Kessler.
An end-of-year concert by local cantorial students was followed by dinner. Then another hour or so for the choral groups to rehearse, after which there was an open microphone session at which all the huge egos of some of the participants could be exercised.
The 6th, being Friday, the sessions came to an end at 3 p.m. Candle lighting time was 3.35. The morning’s offering began with a 90-minute workshop on connecting the Shaliach with the Tzibbur. There were 6 speakers from a wide variety of different practices. After the coffee break, there were 3 lectures: on a cantor in Krakow in the early 20th century; on the liturgical collection in the Israel National Library; and on Samuel Altman.
After lunch and Mincha, there was an hour for the ‘shul choir’ to rehearse. By this stage, we’d practised 2 pieces for Friday evening [neither of them familiar ones], the bits for taking out and returning the Torah, and nothing else. We were not even sure which Chazan would be doing which piece of the services! Kabbalat Shabbat was at 6. We accompanied a couple of cantors in pretty much every bit of the service, essentially busking our way through the choral accompaniments. The choir was led by Charles Heller who somehow got us to produce the correct harmonies, while controlling the egoists. It sounded terrific!
We did the same for the Shabbat morning services, with equal success, despite having a number of different men leading parts of the services.The leyning, by Russell Grossman, was absolutely perfect. The services lasted from 9.30 until well after 1 p.m. Lunch was followed by some free time, which most people spent chatting, until it was time to go to the small shul attached to the Dohany for Mincha, a Seudah Shlishit with their community, Ma’riv, and Havdalah. And then more rehearsals for the choral groups followed by a notionally one-hour concert given by them. Group A sounded great to me.
After breakfast on the 8th, there were 5 consecutive lecturesl one on the nusach of Noach Schall; the history of the use of the organ in shuls; getting the kehillah to joining in the singing; the work to try to recover the Hungarian tradition of Torah reading lost because of the Holocaust; and the history of Hungarian Jewish musicians during the 1930s and 1940s. After lunch and Mincha there was a session for everyone to learn the two ‘pop’ pieces for the final concert. That was scheduled for 8.00 to 10.00 p.m. It went on rather longer!
How to summarise all the above? Amazing experience. Informative. Inspiring. Exhausting!!