As part of our Section’s Our Jewish World program, Cantor Perry Fine of Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston led a fascinating two-part series, called “From Sinai to Delancey Street: Perspectives on Synagogue Music in America,” on Tuesdays, October 29 and November 12, at noon, at the Morris County Library, 30 E. Hanover Ave., in Whippany. Our Jewish World is coordinated by Melanie Levitan and Ilene Dorf Manahan.
Cantor Perry Fine
This two-part series explored issues in the transmission of our core Ashkenazy liturgical practice from its medieval origins to America at the turn of the twenty-first century. What are our core Ashkenazy liturgical tunes and how did they get transformed and transmitted during the Emancipation and beyond? What is the state of synagogue music in America today? Musical examples both live and recorded were provided.
Cantor Fine has been singing Jewish music ever since his days as a boy soprano soloist with Hazzan Hillel Lipsicas’s High Holiday choir in his hometown of Baltimore. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Jewish Theological Seminary, his recordings include settings of the Yom Kippur Service for the Milken Archive Series of Jewish Music and music for the Friday Night Live Service.