The Zemel Choir is proud the range of Jewish Music we sing. Below is a sample of previous concerts given and some of the music they contained.
European Association of Jewish Choirs Festival
Concert to celebrate the inauguration of the Tunkel Collection
A concert in memorial tribute to Victor Tunkel, and marking the transition of his Jewish Music Collection to become part of the Leo Baeck College Library
The Zemel Choir (Musical Director: Ben Wolf)
Soloists: Eliot Alderman, Graeme Alexander, and Adrian Alexander
My father passed away in July 2019. Not long after that, the world was overrun by the Covid Pandemic. Among the many things that this affected was the process of transferring his large and much-celebrated collection of Jewish music books and manuscripts to the Library at Leo Baeck College. I had first to audit the collection listing what he had left me - a process interrupted for over a year of the Pandemic. Transferring the materials to the Leo Baeck took several phases. The entire collection occupies over 40 meters of shelf space. I am pleased to say that the Library Team at Leo Baeck, (comprised chiefly of Cassy Sachar and Julie Feiler), completed the accession process in early 2024, and the close family were invited to a very touching “ribbon-cutting” ceremony at the Library on 25th March.
We discussed a concert, based on material from the Collection, to mark the transition. It was appropriate that the Zemel Choir, which my father helped to found and with which I sing today, should be the principal artistes. It fell to me to produce the Concert. I wanted it to illustrate what sort of programming can be achieved by reference to a research music collection such as this. There is ample raw material there for concerts by the dozen, and I have chosen. (and in good measure, arranged from scratch), music from the Collection to illustrate this. As examples:
· The rarely performed setting for Ps 150 by C V Alkan, (far better known for his maniacally difficult piano music), which is featured in one of Samuel Naumbourg’s books, published in Paris in 1864);
· A gem of a Ladino song from the Bayonne Jewish Community that somehow missed all of the substantial collections of Sephardic folk music; and
· The haunting composition for V’shom'ru by Austrian-born American Jewish composer Heinrich Schalit.
Oh – and we will perform the well-known Sholom Aleichem of Israel Goldfarb the way he intended it to be sung.
Eliot Alderman and the Alexander Brothers perform my arrangement for three tenors of four melodies my father wrote for the Passover Seder.
Many of you knew my father well: as a synagogue singer, music teacher, expert on leyening, fellow chorister, Jewish music all-round maven – and above all as a good friend. This is really the first opportunity we have had to construct a fitting musical memorial to him. I hope you may come to be part of what should be an engaging and highly original concert.
Daniel Tunkel
London 2024
Faithful Voices Concert - St Jude on the Hill
Featuring:
The Zemel Choir
Barnet SACRE Interfaith Choir
The Choir of St Jude’s
Mohamed Ghrab (oud)
Divyanand Caird (Saraswati Veena) and Prathap Ramachandra (Mridangam)
The Mixed Up Chorus
Voice: Hamsa Mounif
Piano: Franklyn Gellnick
Conductors: Nicholas Chalmers, Jeremy Haneman, Alan Shaw, Benjamin Wolf
The final event of Faithful Voices 2024, this concert features music from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Hindu traditions. A mix of vocal and instrumental music, the concert includes Carnatic music from South India and Jewish/Islamic music from Tunisia. The Zemel Choir will perform canonic works of Jewish choral music, while the Mixed Up Chorus will sing songs from South Africa and Syria alongside their wonderful soloist, Hamsa Mounif. We welcome back Divyanand Caird and Prathap Ramachandra, representatives of South Indian music who enchanted the audience at Faithful Voices 2022. New performers include Mohamed Ghrab, an oud player from Tunisia, and local interfaith youth choir, the Barnet SACRE Interfaith Choir. The choir and choral scholars of St Jude’s will sing favourites by Tallis and Rutter, while the concert includes both popular and classical music ranging from the Renaissance to the present day.
Faithful Voices Concert - Online Attendance
Featuring:
The Zemel Choir
The Professional Choir of West London Synagogue
The Lloyd’s Choir
The London International Gospel Choir
Devotional Hindu music ensemble from Neasden Temple
Cantor: Robert Brody
Pianists: Franklyn Gellnick and Matthew Bain
Conductors: Jacques Cohen, Malcolm Singer, Nina Rosenberger, Benjamin Wolf
Join us online for this special concert, broadcast from one of London’s most beautiful synagogues. The concert will feature music from the Jewish, Christian and Hindu traditions, with performances by the Zemel Choir, the professional choir of West London Synagogue and the Lloyd’s Choir. We welcome musicians from the Hindu Temple in Neasden as first-time participants in the festival, as well as welcoming back the vibrant voices of the London International Gospel Choir. Our performers will be singing music by Tallis, Handel, Bloch and Schubert, alongside jazz and gospel numbers. Performers include prize-winning conductors, composers and songwriters, as well as specialists in Jewish music.
Faithful Voices- Come and Sing at Belsize Square Synagogue
Repertoire will be guided by the strengths of the participants. The music choices include compositions by the Renaissance Italian Jewish Composer Salamone Rossi, the French Romantic composer Valentin Alkan, and contemporary Jewish composers Charles Osborne and Itai Daniel. From the Christian tradition we will look at works by John Rutter, Charles Villiers Stanford and C.H.H.Parry.
Some ability to read music will be helpful for this event, but it is not essential to have strong sight-reading ability.
Concert in memory of Henny Levin
Celebrating Maureen Creese
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Music for Mother's Day
a concert in memory of Maureen Creese
Join us for a concert of jazz standards, love songs and Zemel classics, performed by the UK’s leading mixed-voice Jewish choir and featuring the virtuosic jazz trio, Acoustic Triangle
The Zemel Choir: Musical Director: Benjamin Wolf
Acoustic Triangle: Malcolm Creese (double bass), Tim Garland (saxophones and bass clarinet), Gwilym Simcock (piano).
“A trio of world-class virtuosi…exquisitely passionate and inspired”
BBC Music Magazine
“Exultant, lyrical, mellow and frequently dazzling” The Guardian
Soloists from Harrow Opera
Sunday 10th March 2024 at North Western Reform Synagogue, Alyth Gardens, London NW11 7EN at 4.00 pm
Tickets available via link above, £15.00. Profits will go to Blood Cancer UK and Help Musicians (formerly the Musicians Benevolent Fund).
Maureen Creese was Accompanist and Assistant Musical Director of the Zemel Choir and of HarrowOpera for over 40 years.
Barclays Bank Canary Wharf Chanukah Candle Lighting
The Zemel Choir Chanukah Concert at Oaks Lane Reform Synagogue
Zemel Choir Tour to Vienna
Sha'arei Tsedek Synagogue Presents: Freedom Concert in aid of World Jewish Relief Ukraine Crisis Appeal
Spice of Life: London
Spice of Life: Brighton
Spice of Life - A Celebration of Jewish Music Featuring Merlin and Polina Shepherd Duo
Brighton
Join the Zemel Choir, the UK's Leading Mixed Voice Jewish Choir, together with Merlin & Polina Shepherd Duo for a night of Jewish Music from around the world.. These concerts promise to be exciting and engaging. With a focus of Klezmer, Yiddish and Ladino music you will hear the full bredth of the Jewish music World.Ukraine Charity Concert
Harmony and solidarity comes to a Central London venue on 11th December as the internationally celebrated Zemel choir, in partnership with World Jewish Relief, present a concert in aid of the WJR Ukraine Crisis Appeal.
The concert will included music by Jewish Ukrainian composers, music celebrating European Jewish culture, and music celebrating the upcoming festival of Chanukah. The programme will include compositions by composers including Janowski and Finkelstein. The evening will feature video message and pre-recorded performance from the Shrtudel band, a well-known Ukrainian Jewish singing group.
Guest soloists included Cantor Robert Brody, Cantor Paul Heller, Ann Sadan, Julieta Kunik and Benjamin Seifert accompanied by Dr Franklyn Gellnick.
During the event, the British ambassador to Ukraine, H E Melinda Simmons, will make a special online appearance with an exclusive address from Ukraine. The President of the WJR and former president of the Board of Deputies, Henry Grunwald OBE KC is compering the evening.
Handel's "Judas Maccabaeus"
A performance of Handel's "Judas Maccabaeus" at the Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb., The Zemel Choir, Royal Free Music Society and Kensington Philharmonic Orchestra, together with soloists Maud Millar (Soprano), Helen Stanley (Mezzo Soprano), Ed Hastings (Tenor) and Benjamin Seifert (Baritone), under the musical direction of Benjamin Wolf, entertained a full church, who enjoyed the evening immensely.
The Zemel Choir Celebrates Dudley Cohen's 90th Birthday
A concert at Belsize Square Synagogue to celebrate the 90th birthday of Dudley Cohen, the choir’s founder.
It was a most enjoyable event, conducted by Benjamin Wolf and accompanied by Franklyn Gellnick on piano, organ and bass guitar!
We sang a wide selection of repertoire, most of which had been composed or arranged by Dudley, some of which he himself conducted last night, with his wife, former chorister Joan, joining us for some of the pieces and with one of their grandsons, Sam Scheer, also conducting one of Dudley’s pieces.
The concert’s encore was a rousing rendition of everyone singing Dudley ‘Happy Birthday’.
Faithful Voices: Gala Concert
The final concert of the interfaith festival took place at West London Synagogue, and featured performances by prominent amateur groups from different faith backgrounds alongside the professional choir of West London Synagogue. The Zemel Choir, The Professional Choir of West London Synagogue, The London International Gospel Choir & The Mixed-Up Chorus.
Conductors Richard Hills, Jeremy Haneman, Matt Bain, Benjamin Wolf
Faithful Voices: Thursday Concert
Faithful Voices: Workshops
FAITHFUL VOICES: WORKSHOPS
Workshop 1: Introduction to Vedic Chanting in the Hindu faith - Divyanand Caird
Workshop 2: London International Gospel Choir Workshop (Gospel Spirituals) - Matt Bain
Workshop 3: Niggunim (Songs without Words) - Polina Shepherd
Workshop 4: Kirtan - Ananda Monet
A Service Of Solemn Remembrance And Hope On The 80th Anniversary Of Kristallnacht
In November 2018 The Zemel Choir marked the 80th Anniversary of Kristallnacht, (‘Night of the broken glass’) where on the 9th and 10th November 1938, the Nazis carried out a massacre of the Jews in Germany and Austria. To commemorate this horrific event, Westminster Abbey is holding a service of solemn remembrance and hope. How poignant is it that the world has just witnessed another massacre of Jews in Pittsburgh?
This is the third time that the choirs of Belsize Square and West London Synagogues, along with the Zemel Choir, have performed for a service of this kind. Under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Wolf, these services have sought to provide music that is appropriate for the purpose of Holocaust commemoration, while also remaining true to elements of both Jewish and Christian liturgical practice. During the service they will perform a selection of music that spans many hundreds of years, including compositions by three living composers.
Four Rabbis will be officiating in the service including Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg and Rabbi Baroness Neuberger DBE, alongside the Dean of Westminster, The Very Reverend Dr John Hall. There will also be personal testimonies of survivors.
The service begins with organ music by Walter Arlen (born Aptowitzer). Arlen was born in Vienna in 1920 (he is now ninety-eight years old) and fled that city in 1939. He has spent most of his adult life in the USA, where he worked for many years as music critic for the Los Angeles Times. His compositions have been discovered and performed relatively recently (the first CD of his music came out only six years ago), and many of them are inspired by his direct memories of Kristallnacht, as well as the memory of his father’s removal to Buchenwald, and of his mother’s subsequent suicide. The organ music at the end of the service is by Ernest Bloch – an earlier (and more famous) Jewish émigré composer who also spent most of his life in the USA, and his known for music that combines both classical and Jewish musical traditions.
The service is introduced by one of the earliest pieces of Jewish choral music. Composed by Salamone Rossi—a Jewish musician who worked for the Gonzaga court in Mantua in the sixteenth century—this is one of a collection of compositions through which Rossi brought the world of contemporary polyphony into the synagogue. The famous text of Psalm 137 is also appropriate, recalling a previous era when Jews went into exile as a result of violence. The service continues with a traditional High Holyday melody (Shema Koleinu) that is sung throughout the Anglo-Jewish communities, and with music by Louis Lewandowski, Director of Music at the Neue Synagoge in Berlin, and the most famous composer of nineteenth-century Jewish choral music. His music formed part of the liturgy that was familiar to German Jews of the 1940s, is regularly performed at Belsize Square Synagogue, and is an important part of the Anglo- Jewish repertoire. The Enosh Ke’Chatzir is probably his most famous memorial piece. The short excerpt from his Deutsche Schul-Lieder, however, has probably not been performed since the nineteenth century. This collection of songs was created for the children that he taught at a Jewish school in Berlin. It was evidently popular in its time, as it ran to five editions, but these songs for children have not achieved the same ongoing popularity as his liturgical music. The short song that will be performed seems particularly evocative as it speaks of children seeking shelter.
Aside from Arlen, living composers are represented in Malcolm Singer’s Meditation and Cecilia McDowall’s Through a Glass Darkly. Singer’s piece was composed in memory of Rabbi Hugo Gryn, a Holocaust survivor and former Rabbi of West London Synagogue who was very involved in inter-faith dialogue. This evocative piece concludes with an arrangement of Nurit Hirsch’s famous setting of the Oseh Shalom (may he who makes peace in the highest bring peace to all of us). McDowall’s composition was commissioned by the Zemel Choir and the Jewish Music Institute for Westminster Abbey’s Kristallnacht Commemoration in 2013, and will be performed again for this event.
See more at www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-news/kristallnacht-80th-anniversary
Zemel Goes Stateside
In 2013 the Zemel Choir went stateside. Last seen by US audiences in 1987, the UK’s leading mixed-voice Jewish choir went on a whistlestop tour of the East Coast and Canada, with concerts in Boston, Rhode Island, Long Island, New Rochelle and Montreal. You remember the Spice Girls, you’ve heard Adele, you’ve listened to Mumford and Sons. Now, armed with two cantors and a tour bus, the Zemel Choir brings you its very own British invasion (but without the spangly Union Jack dresses).
