The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor. Judah M. Cohen
of Governors.
Werner’s proposal unequivocally placed cantorial education at the center of the projected institute, though with a focus on a figure called the “cantor-educator.” A new figure for the Reform movement (which had relied heavily upon an organ/choir model for worship music until that point), the cantor-educator under Werner’s plan received a new identity as a modern musical authority, and a vessel for enhancing synagogue music according to the ideals promoted by the SAJLM. Werner, in his proposal, argued for the “definite need and demand for trained cantors, choirleaders, and organists which will sharply increase over the next five years.” The cantor-educator role, furthermore, could solve synagogue personnel problems by filling music and religious education leadership needs at the same time. With a minimal financial risk, and an opportunity to engage some of the nation’s most prominent Jewish synagogue musicians (before other denominations acted on their own plans), the school could become a revivifying force if HUC acted promptly. “We certainly shall be blamed,” Werner added, “for not having foreseen that beginning shortage of personnel and having failed in doing our share in preserving the last remnants of the once glorious tradition of European Synagogue music.”24
On February 1, 1948, the Hebrew Union College Board of Governors approved Werner’s proposal and officially began preparations for inaugurating a New York-based School of Sacred Music that fall. Werner followed his word and started to hire faculty from the SAJLM board, engaging them to teach a curriculum that included cantillation, “Traditional Melodies,” “Harmony,” and “Nusach and Hazanut,” “Elementary Liturgy,” “Eastern European Folk Music,” and “Choral Singing and Coaching.” Notably, only one of the new faculty, Gershon Ephros, identified as a bona fide cantor, suggesting a philosophy that placed the responsibility for Jewish musical renewal squarely into scholarly hands. These educators and their courses (plus a “Choral Singing and Coaching Course” taught by Binder) would constitute the course of study for the School’s first year of instruction.
Werner and the prospective School’s appointed Dean, Dr. Abraham Franzblau, acted further to legitimize the School’s status on general religious, musical, and academic fronts. Franzblau began the process of obtaining an official charter for the School from the Board of Regents of the State of New York.25 Werner, meanwhile, conducted “negotiations with the music departments of the universities, colleges, and the most important music schools in the New York area concerning the reciprocity of credits”; according to his own reports, all agreed to accept credit for courses taken in the School of Sacred Music once it received its state charter.26 Werner also assisted in creating a symbolic “Advisory Council” for the school in an attempt to show support from a wide variety of Jewish individuals and organizations.27 With evident pride in their endeavors, the School’s founders thus looked to give the School a distinguished place at the crossroads of New York’s Jewish and academic life.
The Reform movement leadership also tried to see to it that the School would serve the movement’s own needs. To add greater weight to the founding of the School and its intended mission, Dean Franzblau conducted an exploratory survey of North American Reform congregations and their receptivity to cantor-educators in 1948. Working from 275 responses,28 Franzblau painted a rosy picture. Less than a quarter of the reporting congregations currently employed cantors; and of those cantors, over 60% had responsibilities outside of religious ritual, “most of them educational.”29 Seventeen percent of the other congregations, meanwhile—most located outside the Eastern United States—expressed interest in hiring a cantor-educator in the near future.30 These figures affirmed the Reform movement’s own readiness to establish a cantorial school. By deciding positively to focus on training “cantor-educators” rather than “cantors only,” and by ensuring that a space in the movement existed for the school’s graduates, it could tailor the needs of the new institution specifically to serve the perceived trends in the movement.
Applicants, drawn by numerous personal inquiries and advertisements in German, Yiddish, and English Jewish-interest periodicals, came with little difficulty;31 over forty potential students had applied to the new program by the end of Spring, 1948.32 Werner and Franzblau imposed significant requirements for admission: a high school diploma, facility in English, fluent reading of Hebrew prayers, the ability “to translate simple passages from the Prayer Book,” and basic competence in vocal performance, piano, sight reading, and music theory.33 In actual auditions, however, evaluators offered some flexibility for those who fell slightly short of these expectations. Students also needed to submit to a psychological evaluation (HUSESM 1949–1950: 123) and possibly a “physiological” throat examination to assess vocal potential.34 Ultimately, these auditions yielded an initial class of sixteen students, with backgrounds ranging from yeshiva to opera. Openly proclaiming its commitment to a “k’lal yisrael” approach, the School in its press release publicized its students’ ambitions to enter cantorial positions across the Jewish denominational spectrum.35
On Saturday evening, October 16, 1948, the Hebrew Union School of Sacred Music conducted its opening exercises in the auditorium of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion building at forty West Sixty-Eighth Street. Representatives from the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Jewish Music Forum, the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Liturgical Music, and the Jewish Music Council; the Cantors Assembly of the United Synagogue, the Association of Reform Cantors and Ministers, and the Chazonim Farband (Cantors Ministers Association); Columbia University, New York University, and City College of New York; the Juilliard School, the Organists’ Guild, Westminster Choir College, and the major press organizations all received invitations to attend.36 Together with the faculty of the new school, they would welcome the inaugural class of male cantorial students, as well as three female “special students” pursuing advanced degrees in Jewish music.37 With great fanfare, the founders of the School heralded its opening as a new start for Jewish music in the United States.
Consolidating the Cantor
The School’s first students commenced a projected three-year program, taking music classes three days per week, and evening classes in Hebrew language and Jewish education twice a week. As they progressed in their studies, however, the curriculum made three significant shifts. First was the addition of more Western musicianship and music theory classes. In the school’s initial course listing, the School’s organizers stated their intention to provide instruction “exclusively in the Jewish field,” implying that students came in with an acceptable level of Western musicianship training (HUSESM 1948–1949: 103).38 It appears, though, that most students admitted to the School lacked that background (W. Sharlin [Ruben], 1997);39 thus, the School implemented a “Sight Singing” class starting in 1949 (HUSESM 1949–1950: 134), and courses on basic music theory and choral “Score Reading” the following year (HUSESM 1950–1951: 149). By the 1955–56 academic year, the School had in place an entire musicianship sequence, ostensibly bringing such skills into the cantorial transmission process (HUSESM 1955–1956: 160–161, 167).
A second curricular shift involved the introduction of vocal tutorials called “coaching.” Initially the School’s organizers created these short sessions to give students supplementary or remedial assistance, especially (presumably) to those who officiated at weekend pulpits during their course of study.40 They began in late 1948, when Abraham Franzblau asked one of the most experienced students to coach three other particularly deficient students. This single coach, however, quickly turned into a “coaching staff” that included a prominent retired cantor and two experienced synagogue musicians.41 By the School’s second year, “Coaching” appeared in the published “Summary of Curriculum” with the designation “as needed.” In 1950–1951, coaching received its first listing in the course catalog, with a description that continued to emphasize a pandenominational approach: “The individual coaches specialize in the Orthodox, Conservative or Reform traditions, and all students work under all three. They are thus qualified to serve as cantors in all three traditions” (HUSESM 1950–1951). The following year, the School coordinated its coaching schedule with a new series of practical “Workshop” classes that focused on the “[d]emonstration, practice and intensive drill” of a different denomination’s