While we're on the subject... this is a good place to mention Rabbi Greg Wall's installation as rabbi of the Sixth Street Synagogue in NYC. To celebrate, the shul is having a concert retrospective, looking at Wall's musical work over the past twenty years. Several of his projects will be performing, including Hassidic New Wave, Later Prophets, Klezmerfest, Unity Orchestra, and more.
The installation/concert (and Greg's 50th B-day celebration) will take place at the Sixth Street Synagogue on October 31, 2009 at 8:30pm. The address is 325 E. 6th St. (between 1st and 2nd) and admission is $18 at the door.
Neshama Carlebach's new record, a collaboration with the Green Pastures Baptist Church choir is now out. You can listen to the album and buy ithere.
Marching on Mein Shtetl Yass. Check out their other clips, these guys are good! The leader of that band, Na'or Carmi has a new collaboration with clarinetist Chilik Frank that's also well worth checking out. You can hear a clip off that project here.
Over at DovBear, a post on Simchat Torah: " Why don't the Women Dance?
David J. Hahn posts on "Motivating Musicians as a Bandleader."
Hey, it's another Ortho boys choir!The Yitzy Bald Boys Choir.
Ha'aretz interviewed Menachem Philip in an article on people who've left Orthodoxy,"The Ties That Continue To Bind."Ha'aretz interviewed Menachem Philip.
Filmmaker Meni Philip, formerly a well-known famous Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) singer, who recently presented his short film "Sinner," at the festival in Venice, says he is sometimes suddenly "thrown back" to his previous self. For example, when he choked up upon hearing a song by Haredi singer Mordechai Ben David on the radio. Philip himself recently embarked on a journey to learn about secular music, and discovered the Beatles and classical music. He has also shed any "religious jargon," as he describes it, in his own singing. But, in spite of everything, he admits, there is Haredi music that touches him deeply, "because of your childhood. It makes your stomach do flip-flops."Finally, some video over at Vos Iz Neias ... " MBD: Zealots Slander Jewish Concerts With Fabricated Lies."
I met with Philip, who has been "outside" for nine years, to discuss a heartrending scene in his documentary film "Let There Be Light" (2007), which recounts his personal story and that of his brother, who also left religious life. The scene takes place at a Purim party organized by Hillel, a nonprofit Israeli organization catering to those who leave the ultra-Orthodox community. Philip performed one of his melancholy hits from the past - "Rabbi Ishmael Said" - before an audience of people who were no longer Orthodox. Dressed in totally secular clothes, in some cases to an extreme because of Purim, they sang along with him, in tears.
"Usually those who have recently left religion refuse to hear such songs," says Philip, "but it was Purim and it was appropriate. After all, I used to be their singer, when they were ultra-Orthodox. They simply melted."
