Day of Music

We are proud to announce that our next Liberal Judaism Music Day will take place on Saturday 22 June 2019.

The event will be held at Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue (NPLS) with the theme of ‘music reflecting the text’. The LJ Music Day is for everyone with an interest in Synagogue music – enthusiastic congregant singers, choir members, music leaders and instrumentalists.

Through a range of song sessions and workshops, it will look to the future and ask what direction might our synagogue music take as Liberal Judaism introduces its new siddur. The day will end with a musical event in the evening. Performers are invited to submit entries for the evening performance event via music@npls.org.uk.

An opportunity for all Liberal Jewish Communities to come together for a joyful day of sharing songs and ideas here at Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue. The day is open to everyone in the congregation and we do hope you will register and join us for a musical day!

We’ll start preparing for our Shacharit service – and new this time, a chance to choose different ensemble groups – traditional choir, a capella, guitar led group – to lead different songs in the service.

Following lunch there will be a range of workshops, talks and discussions to choose from with music leaders from across LJ including Cantors Tamara Wolfson and Gershon Silins, Rabbis Mark Solomon and Rachel Benjamin, music leaders Cathy Heller Jones, Mich Sampson, Franklyn Gellnick, Ruth Colin, LJY and more to be announced.

Havdallah concludes that part of the day and then we continue together for an evening of ‘open mic’ style performance, from sharing songs learnt during the day, to performances by music leaders, choirs and ensembles of all ages and musical styles! Dinner included. Family and friends are invited to join you for this relaxed evening of entertainment.

The day will explore relevant themes and questions around music in our communities, including:

• As we trial a new LJ Siddur this is a good moment to consider how our LJ music reflects our texts: how can we keep our heritage music with new texts; how to reflect the meaning and mood of text when composing new tunes, etc…
• We now have so many options for styles of music: nusach, hazzanut, traditional liberal choral, ‘folk’ melody, etc; and instruments such as organ versus piano, guitars and violins to saxophones, how do we choose what to use and when?
• With a decline in general music literacy, how can we best encourage congregational singing. Likewise ‘traditional’ organs are losing popularity, so how best can we accompany the singing without losing our Liberal Heritage?
• Exploring the position of the Cantor, a new clergy role in Liberal Jewish services and Communities.

For more details on this year’s event, please email Cantor Tamara Wolfson and Ruth Colin of NPLS on music@npls.org.uk.

The last Music Day was held in 2017 and was a huge success with people travelling from far and wide to attend.

The Liberal Judaism Music Day takes place the day before the Day of Celebration, Liberal Judaism’s flagship event of 2019 which is being held on Sunday 23 June at The Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood. Some elements from the Music Day will continue into the Day of Celebration.