Sydney Jewish Choir performs at festival
The Sydney Jewish Choral Society (SJCS) has performed at the Blackheath Choir Festival in the Blue Mountains.
Sydney Jewish Choral Society members perform at Blackheath Choir Festival on 24 August 2014, in Phillips Hall at Blackheath Community Centre, under the baton of Musical Director Rose Grausman.
The choir performed a program of Jewish music to the popular event held in the picturesque town not far from Sydney.
The audience included members of gospel and Andalusian Arabic choirs.
Diversity was the keyword in the three-day Festival, which included 52 choirs from across NSW featuring singers young and old, from a variety of cultures and institutions.
“The Sydney Jewish Choral Society was honoured to be included in this Festival,” said Anne Spira, SJCS President.
Spira continued, “Our program included Jewish liturgical and folk songs, and ended with Oseh Shalom – a prayer for peace. Judging by the many appreciative comments afterwards, our performance met our choir’s goals as in our program notes: ‘To bring goodwill and spread messages of harmony and tolerance using music as a bridge between communities.’”
The concert produced interest in future collaboration between the SJCS and other community choirs; further, according to Spira, the choir’s participation “generated great excitement” even before the event. “I was approached by a couple of Blue Mountains area community members with a Jewish heritage expressing their delight at the opportunity to reconnect with their culture.”
On 3 September the Sydney Jewish Choral Society will continue to spread the message of goodwill and harmony through song, featuring in the Wolper Wellbeing Forum event ‘The Influence of Music on Health’. This free community event, to be held at Event Cinema 8, Bondi Junction, at 7.30 pm, will highlight research on the physical and emotional benefits of singing in a group.
Sydney Jewish Choral Society was founded in 1986. Its members come from a wide range of professions, countries and musical backgrounds.
The repertoire takes in classical and liturgical music, opera, jazz and musical theatre, and popular and folk music, in many languages, including Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino.
