The Cantorial Ordination Program offers a five-year diverse and multi-faceted curriculum that prepares you to serve as a spiritual and musical leader for communities across the denominational spectrum. The program highlights intensive and deep core text study throughout the 5-year program, as cantorial and rabbinical students study together.
Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of 21st-century Judaism, fusing traditional Jewish texts and liturgy with innovative and compelling musical and spiritual programming. You will grow into the kind of leader who invites deeper personal connections, is well versed in Jewish texts, leads dynamic worship services and creates compelling connections.
Graduates of the program earn cantorial ordination and a Master of Jewish Studies with the option of a Master of Jewish Education. Our cantors will be eligible to apply for membership in both the Cantors Assembly and the American Conference of Cantors.
Hebrew College is a special place. I’m immersed in a community of rabbis and cantors where people talk openly about their emotions, and strive to become better people. It is a pluralistic place, and not in name only, but lived every day. There is a rigor to our pluralism; we learn how to become better listeners and how to be more tolerant and respectful of others. It isn’t simple—it is examined, studied and talked about.
David Wolff, Cantorial Alumnus
The Cantorial Curriculum is built on these Core Competencies and Courses:
All courses that are part of the Core Competencies curriculum will require at least an intermediate level of Hebrew comprehension, grammar and verbal ability. A level of Hebrew 4 (equivalent to 4 semesters of college Hebrew) is required of all entering students.
Advanced Hebrew courses are taught during your first year in the program and are offered throughout your years of study at Hebrew College.
In keeping with Hebrew College’s commitment to study based on traditional sources, the foundations of our Cantorial curriculum are built on the chant traditions for singing Jewish texts, Nusach and Cantillation.
Like Oral Torah, the orally transmitted musical systems of Nusach and Cantillation carry with them the historical and spiritual expressions of Jews from the Middle Ages to the present. Our courses focus on Ashkenazi Jewish traditions. These musical forms connect the Cantor and the congregation to the primary texts of Tanakh and Jewish Liturgy, while facilitating communal congregational singing and individual reflective participation.
Our students study Nusach and Cantillation systems for the complete liturgical calendar.
Nusach and Cantillation Courses
Basic Weekday Nusach
Shabbat Nusach
Three Festivals Nusach
Rosh HaShanah Nusach
Yom Kippur Nusach
Torah Cantillation
Haftarah Cantillation
High Holiday Torah Cantillation
Cantillation of Esther, Book of Ruth (Three Festivals) and Lamentations
The Jewish music history curriculum will immerse you in the context and sources of Jewish music. You will study Jewish art song, folk song, Jewish musical theater and hazzanut, as well as Jewish choral music, contemporary and traditional congregational melodies, niggunim and Shabbat and High Holiday repertoire.
Through this bountiful musical language, we express our deepest yearnings and experience our most joyous celebrations. The music of the sacred moments of our lives – births, b’nei mitzvah, weddings and funerals – carries our most profound connections to on another, our community and our people. Becoming fluent in these many musical expressions, you will be able to lead and teach your congregations.
The study of these core texts is at the center of all learning at Hebrew College. In the Cantorial Program, you will have the unique opportunity to study the core texts of Tanakh, Talmud and Halakha in depth with a study partner in chevruta with rabbinical students in the Beit Midrash (Study Hall). Together, you will examine the meaning, context, and interpretation of these texts as you connect the source material to the relevance of contemporary life. This indepth study of our core texts continues throughout all 5 years of your program.
The liturgy of the Jewish Prayer Services, Tanakh, Talmud and Halakha (Jewish Law) serve as the primary texts that you pray, chant, teach and study as a cantor. You will study the poetry and sources of the liturgy of the weekday services, Shabbat, Three Festivals and High Holy Days, so that you will be able to lead your congregations with knowledge and appreciation for the foundational texts of our people.
Being a Cantor and a member of the Jewish clergy requires different skills to help you address the many different needs of your congregation and larger community. Whether you are training b’nei mitzvah students, teaching a religious school class, conducting a congregational choir, communicating with your lay leaders, or providing counsel to individual congregants in need, you will be asked to navigate the varied terrain of being a Jewish Leader.
At Hebrew College, we address these practical skills with the same seriousness that we apply to all topics of study in our curriculum. As you step into the many roles of a Cantor, we want you to feel comfortable in the knowledge that you have the skills you will need.
Professional Skills Classes
Pastoral Counseling
Life Cycle Officiating
Communications Skills Practicum
Foundations of Jewish Education
Cantorial Internship (full year)
You will also address specific Cantorial Skills in your individual Cantorial Coaching sessions and Voice Lessons.
As ordained Clergy you will graduate with a Master of Jewish Studies or Jewish Education. You can choose to pursue a Master of Jewish Education. Those interested in the Master of Jewish Education, please contact Michael Shire, Director of the Jewish Education program.
Cantorial students have ample opportunity to perform and participate in musical programming at Hebrew College and in Greater Boston.
All semesters
Students will sing with the Hebrew College chamber choir, Kol Arev—a music ensemble composed of students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Hebrew College. Founder and Artistic Director Cantor Lynn Torgove and Music Director and Conductor Amy Lieberman envision the ensemble serving as ambassadors of Hebrew College in the larger Jewish Community as well as bringing musical inspiration and learning to their fellow students and faculty.
Cantor Melanie Blatt, Can`18, sings J. S. Bach’s “Auch mit gedämpften, schwachen Stimmen” from BWV 36 at her final School of Jewish Music recital. Cantor Blatt was ordained in June 2018 and is currently the Cantor-Educator and Director of Community Engagement at Congregation Beth El in Baltimore, MD.
Cantor Dara Rosenblatt`18 sings her original version of
“Adonai Ori” with lyrics from Psalm 27.
Students also participate in regular voice recitals; and are eligible to audition for the internationally recognized Zamir Chorale of Boston.
All students will study privately with expert voice teachers. Voice lessons are an integral part of our vocal arts curriculum. Theselessons are included at no additional cost.
Each student is assigned a cantorial coach for each semester, and coaching sessions are crafted to meet the needs of the individual student. Coaching focuses on leading tefillah, officiating at Jewish lifecycle events, songs for the Jewish year, and guitar proficiency.
Rav-Hazzan Program
Faculty and Coaches
Apply
As more cantors are being asked to fill pastoral roles and more rabbis are being asked to take on musical leadership of their congregations, Hebrew College recognizes that the time has come to merge innovative musical education with pluralistic rabbinical training. The result is our first-of-its-kind Rav-Hazzan (rabbi-cantor) double ordination program. The Rav-Hazzan program awards both rabbinic and cantorial ordination, preparing rabbis and cantors for leadership in twenty-first century Jewish communities.
One of the program’s biggest strengths is the faculty. In addition to students learning in-depth cantillation with me, they study with top people in their fields! They learn composition and guitar with Cantors Jeff Klepper and Robbie Solomon, nusach with Cantor Brian Mayer, voice with Cantor Lynn Torgove, choral skills with Amy Lieberman. And it’s great being in Boston—a city rich in cultural activities and offering a wide variety of Jewish experiences, including the opportunity to sing in the renowned Zamir Chorale of Boston.
And of course the opportunity to study in classes with the rabbinical students and their awesome faculty and to learn in the Rav-Hazzan program also enhance our program.
Accompanied Repertoire with Hankus Netsky