The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor. Judah M. Cohen
of Jewish religious musical dynamics and aesthetics.
Despite their increased involvement, however, students initially continued to view their jobs as temporary and avocational. Only over time, and with the help of proactive role models, did these students begin to recognize the cantorate as a possible professional career. They frequently described such realizations as sudden and revelatory:
I always thought about being a cantor and a rabbi. Always. But … I never saw it as a profession for some reason. And then I went to a … convention [for Jewish educators] the year before I started college.… I was going to start college when I got back and for some reason I signed up for [the] Political Science [major].… I just didn’t see [the cantorate] as a profession—it was more like a life.… When I got back from [the conference], I was sitting on my mom’s bed [talking to her, and I said]: “Wait a minute. I can be a cantor, as a profession. This can be my life! Why go and major in Political Science?” So from that point on I … changed my major to Music [and] got prepared. (G. Arad, Sept. 8, 1999)
To some students who grew up outside Reform Judaism, the academic nature of a cantorial school seemed problematic at first, at odds with the more apprenticeship-based but less “official” cantorial education prevalent in the students’ local area. One student, for example, decided to continue cantorial studies as an avocation while pursuing a more “conventional” degree and career in college, even after experiencing the revelation that he could one day “be a cantor”:
I remember one moment that I was in [my cantorial teacher’s] office, and we were studying something and he says, “… you know one day when you’ll be a cantor and you’ll have your congregation …” I was like “Wait a second, what am I doing here? Oh, I guess I never thought of it. Why, why don’t I think about possibly going to school to become a cantor?” But at that time based on the tradition that I grew up in, it wasn’t necessarily customary for people who wanted to be cantors to go to school and get a degree for it. I have numerous friends who grew up in the … area and they studied with people like [my teacher] and other local cantors, and they just went and applied for a job after.…
So I thought: “Maybe I’ll go to law school, and I’ll become a cantor on the side.” Cause the cantor of my synagogue happened to own a big kosher, chicken type of establishment in [the area]—he has the monopoly [on] kosher chicken. So I thought maybe I can be a cantor on the side like him. But, as I thought about that more and more it just, it wasn’t enough. I needed to give myself fully to this; it couldn’t be a part-time thing. It needed to be something that I could give my whole heart to. (Interview)
Other students training to pursue professional performance careers began to find the cantorate as a tempting way to pre-empt what they increasingly saw as unfulfilling job prospects. Cantorial careers, they began to notice, offered space for personal and religious fulfillment, while allowing them to maintain the sense of worth they acquired through their musical training:
I knew that—as I saw the classmates who were a couple years ahead of me coming back in order to visit the college—that, none of them were really happy.… [T]hey would be on the road fifty weeks out of the year, and they weren’t making any money; they were unhappy. And that’s not what I wanted. I didn’t want to be unhappy; I didn’t want to have to compete; I didn’t want to have to go to auditions the rest of my life. [I]n addition, the number of people that I met who were touring with these groups or whatever, they had no time. Many of them were non-Jews but they had no time for services in the morning on Sunday, or to observe less-than-major holidays in their faith. And that wasn’t something that I was ready to give up.… I wanted to be—I still want to be—a musician; but I wanna have the stability that doesn’t normally go along with being a musician. (S. Warner. May 3, 2000)
The broader Jewish backgrounds of these students generally led them to consider a range of cantorial schools rather than gravitate to the school associated with one particular movement. All but one explored both the School of Sacred Music and the Conservative movement’s cantorial school. In the end, each chose Hebrew Union College for a different reason: some emphasized taking a liking to the movement’s ideological positions, while others were drawn to the quality of the music education, the pedagogy, and (for women) a perception that the Reform movement had better chances for job placement. None of the students, however, stated they chose Hebrew Union College for reasons having to do with earlier religious affiliations. Rather, their decision to apply seemed based on a desire to attend the “best” cantorial school for their needs.
The third and largest grouping of narratives, comprising over half the students I interviewed, involved students who came to the cantorate as a final, and fulfilling, career choice. Typically well- trained in classical voice and/or instrumental traditions, these students’ decisions to apply to the School of Sacred Music frequently came after years pursuing other musical careers. As with the second grouping, the large majority of these candidates had grown up outside of Reform Judaism, usually within the Conservative movement and educational system. Yet few cited their upbringings as crucial factors in their decisions to apply to the cantorate. Instead, the students within this group tended to describe the cantorate as a professional music career that resonated deeply with their personal aesthetics and ideologies.
Students recounted extensive classical musical training—usually vocal—throughout their early lives and undergraduate careers. Many also earned their bachelors degrees in music or musical performance. They did not seem to become familiar with the cantorate and synagogue music, however, until later. After graduation, many of these students went on to pursue careers in opera and other forms of musical performance. Others continued singing semiprofessionally, while holding full-time jobs outside the musical field.
Many of the students in this group began to consider the cantorate after substantial professional experience with established cantors. These relationships frequently started serendipitously. Some began with parttime employment in a professional synagogue choir, and expanded to solo and cantorial substitute work upon the recognition of the student’s Jewish identity:
I talked to a cantor at a Reform temple who hired me to be a sub[stitute] for his quartet.… [O]ne night [the cantor] was losing his voice; it was a Friday night service. I was subbing for the soprano; and I was the only Jewish person singing in the quartet. It’s pretty common; [in] all the other temples [I sang in] that had quartets, I was the only Jewish person.… So, [the cantor] turned to me and said: “I know it’s Friday night but, how quickly can you learn a service?” And, so I took the music home and the next morning I came over and sang the service; as the soloist and not in the quartet. And he basically just shuffled me around [during the service]. He’s like “Okay, get up now” and “Walk over here.” He came to the service; he just couldn’t open his mouth. So that was my first experience as a cantorial soloist. (Interview)
Other students came into similar relationships by taking congregational Hebrew School jobs, or simply by approaching the cantor directly. Bearing a resemblance to the “classical” apprenticeship approach to cantorial education, these relationships introduced students to increasing musical responsibilities, while teaching them both the progression of the service as well as the musical choices entailed in leading it. While this learning process seemed to focus more on professional development than on religious interest, students nonetheless gained a specialized knowledge through their activities, leading to an interest in further study.
Notably, only students in this group framed their attraction to the cantorate through a personal connection to the religious musical repertoire itself. Implicitly defining the music as a genre, their comments seemed to reinforce their perceptions of the cantorate as a kind of professional singing career; at the same time, the music seemed to become a vessel for some students to explore their Jewish identities in new and inspiring ways. In one particularly stark example, a student who had held an overall ambivalent view of Judaism described an intangible affinity to “the music” as a strong initial argument for entering the cantorate:
One day I was living in Chicago and I had flown into New York to do the High Holy Days [i.e., to sing as a part of a synagogue choir]. And I was sitting there one day and I thought, “I really wanna do this. Like, I really love this music. I don’t really like [i.e., fully understand]