On a fall Wednesday afternoon, Stephen Abramowitz's mellifluous baritone fills the student lounge. Standing and sitting by turn, eight peers and Hazzan Brian Mayer, DSM, follow along in the Minhah service. Abramowitz concludes, and the group clusters around a table. As they engage in a constructive critique, the real learning begins.
It's another day in Hebrew College's new
Cantor-Educator Program. The five-year, full-time course of study (with options for intensive part-time study) is a direct response to the expanding role of cantors in today's synagogues. Students in the Cantor-Educator Program train to become outstanding musicians and liturgical scholars as well as Jewish education professionals. They receive both Cantorial Ordination within a transdenominational setting and a Master of Jewish Education.
This program has been offered since fall 2004 through the
Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education and the
Jewish Music Institute. Roughly 40 percent of the curriculum focuses on Jewish education and Jewish studies, and 60 percent concentrates on Jewish music and cantorial and professional studies.
This curricular balance suits Abramowitz's professional goals perfectly. "I'm hoping to be an educator-cantor or a cantor-educator," he says. "I want to seek a position where I'm a hazzan in a shul and can use my education master's to the fullest extent. The other option is to become a hazzan/music leader/teacher in a day school setting."
Abramowitz and a diverse group of inaugural students study in this transdenominational program headed by Hazzan Scott M. Sokol, PhD. Faculty members include Hazzan Mayer, Dr. Joshua Jacobson, Hazzan Jeffrey Klepper and Hazzan Charles Osborne. Abramowitz is focusing on a second career after spending 14 years in TV and radio. Others are continuing students from the Certificate in Jewish Liturgical Music program or are new to Hebrew College. All are well-versed in Hebrew language and liturgy.
Each Wednesday, they participate in a three-hour, two-part
nusah course and take turns leading the Minhah service. They also take education courses such as
Foundations of Jewish Congregational Education and
Pedagogy of B'nai Mitzvah as well as Jewish studies classes, including
Genres of Rabbinic Literature and
Zionism and Israel in Historical Perspective.
"Our vision for the cantorate," says Dr. Harvey Shapiro, dean of the Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, "is that pedagogy, religious inspiration and musical artistry can form an integrated whole that redefines the profession. Through the study of education in the context of sacred music and Jewish tradition, our students will develop professional identities as cantors that will contain a profound and needed educational dimension."
Abramowitz's development of this educational dimension continues outside of class. In addition to his full-time course load, he teaches third- through fifth-grade Judaic studies and is the Junior USY Advisor for middle schoolers at Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham, Mass. He also leads students in immersive Hebrew and Judaic studies at Kesher's after-school program in Newton and tutors b'nai mitzvah students.
Through mandatory internships with either the Zamir Chorale of Boston or Koleinu: The Jewish Community Chorus of Boston, both based at Hebrew College, Abramowitz and the other cantor-educator students will hone the musical artistry components of their professional identities as well.
As for his first experience leading the Minhah service, Abramowitz says, "I've led Shabbat and Kol Nidre services two dozen times, but I've never been as nervous as I was in that room with Hazzan Mayer. I was being judged by my peers and by my potential mentor. Their comments were kind and fair, and they really motivated me to improve."
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Shalom Haverim
