By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
When Michele Yanow and Mary Pat Graham heard Kol Dodi, the Metro-West Jewish Community Chorale of New Jersey perform “Not in Our Town,” “we said, “˜We have to sing this song,’” said Yanow, founder and executive director of the Seattle Jewish Chorale. The piece by songwriter Fred Small, originally commissioned by Seattle Men’s Choir, is based on the reaction of residents of Billings, Mont. after the Ku Klux Klan threw a brick through the window of a Jewish family. In response, many of the town’s citizens put pictures of menorahs in their windows to stand up against the bigotry.
A version of “Not in Our Town” will be the centerpiece of Seattle Jewish Chorale’s season finale, “L’Chaim: Songs for Life,” on June 12 at Town Hall Seattle.
“It’s such a powerful story, and the music tells it so beautifully,” Yanow said. “All the choir members have commented as we rehearsed that they get emotional singing it. I get verklempt just reading the lyrics.”
Chorale member Michael Mendelow, who sang in men’s choruses at the height of the AIDS crisis, said singing this piece brought back memories of the cantatas from that time.
“We had to learn to keep the emotion below the throat to sing properly,” he said. “It’s a very moving piece.”
The piece will feature Baritone soloist Jacob Herbert.
Mendelow, who joined the chorale this season, will have a solo as well, in a new version of the M’sheberach prayer made popular by Jewish singer Debbie Friedman, who died in January.
Though the M’sheberach will be different, Friedman fans can rest assured that she will be represented, as will many genres of Jewish music that pertain to various parts of the life cycle, from lullabies to love songs to a set “of what we call campfire songs,” Yanow said, with recognizable tunes from camp and youth groups. “We’re going to invite the audience to sing along with us.”
Though more mature choral groups often have specific themes to their shows, “at this point in our growth and in the growth of Seattleites getting to know about us, we’re still really trying to keep the program very broad and very eclectic,” Yanow said.
This finale will be no different, with a little something for everyone. The music will be sung in Yiddish, Hebrew, Ladino and English. There will be some folk music, some jazz, some Israeli tunes, and even some Jewish American standards.
“That’s part of our mission, to show people the whole breadth and depth of Jewish experience and Jewish life, both sacred and cultural,” Yanow said.
The music is Jewish, but having performed at senior homes, shopping centers and of course Town Hall, the audience is inevitably a mix of the entire population, so the chorale is in many ways an ambassador to Judaism. That means education and context are required. To fill that role, Jewish music expert and JTNews writer Gigi Yellen will narrate.
“A lot of her commentary is going to contextualize things that we’re doing for people who are less familiar with the texts or the languages,” Yanow said.
As the chorale rolls up the red carpet on its third season, the organization is embarking on a growth plan. The board has been working with consultants who are helping them to create a new strategic plan, “trying to take us into the next three, five, 10 years and really take the chorale to the next level as an organization and make sure it’s sustainable,” Yanow said.
That includes expanding the board to people who love music, but don’t necessarily sing and increasing their outreach — both in and out of the Jewish community — as well as their fundraising and marketing efforts. And, of course, there’s the plan to build the chorale’s artistic future: “With different levels of musicianship you have to figure out how to bring the group along together so that everybody can keep growing artistically,” Yanow said. Eventually, she said, “we want to be able to produce a CD. All that stuff is going into the plan.”
But first they have to finish their current season. And they’re going to go out with a bang.