Almost Shabbes

The sun isn't anywhere near set yet, but with our baby and a cat, we decided to bring in shabbes with a couple birthday candles so nobody with idle hands our paws could get hurt, and before Tzip and I put Mr. Goobs (the baby) to bed. This is my first shabbes without some sort of gig in a while...the Saturday before last, my ensemble (an a capella vocal octet that specializes in new music and early music) performed a psalm setting on a doctoral student's recital, then last shabbes we had a recording session for a previous project, and we sang two songs from my Refugiado cycle this Tuesday and finally sang a Kyrie on Wednesday by a senior undergrad.

It's not so easy to be a Jew in the music world. I feel like I have to constantly compromise on some level to participate. I can see how my distant cousin, Felix Mendelssohn, must have been under tremendous professional pressure to give up already and assimilate, which he did. Although I think a marriage theoretically had something to do with that, too. I have one Jewish friend who is conducting a local church choir. I'm not sure any of them know he's Jewish. I would never be able to be comfortable doing that.

Most often, I have to compromise by performing or rehearsing on shabbes. Which I don't really have a problem with. (Note from Tzipporah - I do. Big problem. Oh well.)

Less often, but in an all-permeating way in the vocal world that can really get me upset, pissed off, I feel like I'm the victim of a directed proselytizing campaign. I don't mind singing Christian music or liturgy as long as the setting is academic and artistic. I do have a problem when I am told I can't interpret without belief. I had it out with one professor so far, over a year ago now, who was somewhat over the top, although she apparently didn't mean to come off that way. Something like 25% of the choir was Jewish or otherwise non-Christian, but none of the undergrads in the ensemble would sign on with me to complain, so I did it alone. That professor apologized, and also wound up not getting tenure (I'm not sure how much the complaint weighed in).

But, on the plus side, I get to be an artistic ambassador for our people. I wrote a setting of a prayer from the the Amidah that my group performed, and even got read by a professional group. When a visiting conductor from Estonia was in residence, I got to have a candid talk about Estonian Jewry with him. And of course my Refugiado cycle, while not overtly religious, is a universal expression that happens to come from the Jewish experience. I hope to get it more performances, once I get the score in publishable shape.

-Bad Cohen
PS Tzip felt she had to correct some of my grammar. And sneak an editorial into my post.

"Different from"
"Different than"
"Different from"
"Different than"
"Different from"
"Different than"
"Different from"
"Oy...You could be right."