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VOICE
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A
native of Tallahassee, Florida, Cantor Rebecca Garfein, mezzo-soprano,
is the Senior Cantor of Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York
City. She has
appeared in numerous recitals throughout the United States,
Israel and Europe, and
made her New York City debut with the New York Pro Arte Chamber
Orchestra at Cami Hall.
Garfein
has been a participant in the opera program at DiCapo Opera
in New York City and at the Aspen Music Festival. Cantor Garfein
was also a participant in the Young Artists' vocal program at
the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. Cantor Garfein
has researched the music of the Sephardic Jews and written an
annotated bibliography of Sephardic music.
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On November 12,
1997, New York mezzo-soprano, Cantor Rebecca Garfein sang in concert
at the Judische Kulturtage, Berlin's annual Jewish Cultural
Festival . Singing liturgical music previously sung only by males,
Garfein was also the first female cantor to sing in Germany as a soloist.
The concert was performed in the Centrum Judaicum auditorium, housed
in the former Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue, in what was once the
women's gallery. Garfein was accompanied by organist, Arnold Ostlund,
Jr. (from Yonkers, New York) and Berlin's nine-voice Pestalozzistrasse
Synagogue Choir.
We include here
the musical composition Kiddush (Prayer of Sanctification)
by Kurt Weill, sung by Cantor Garfein and choir. Composed in 1946
for tenor solo, chorus, and organ, Kiddush was commissioned
by the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, where it was first performed
during a Friday night service by Cantor David Putterman. The melody
and arrangement is cabaret style. Weill dedicated the score to his
father Albert, who survived the Second World War and became a citizen
of the new state of Israel.
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