Temple B’nai Torah will wrap up its 10-week-long 2009/5769 Cultural Arts Series on April 12 with a performance by New York-based songstress Chava Mirel Severino.
Severino is no stranger to Temple B’nai Torah — far from it. In fact, as the daughter of B’nai Torah’s senior rabbi, James Mirel, Severino has been a familiar face around the synagogue since she was a kid. Although she has lived in New York for the last eight years, Severino said that the Seattle area, and particularly B’nai Torah, has always felt like home.
“I love coming back; this will always be my community, no matter where I go,” Severino said.
Severino will be the final artist to take part in the Cultural Arts Series, which, according to B’nai Torah’s assistant rabbi Yohanna Kinberg, was conceived as a way for the synagogue’s leadership to share their passion for theatre and music with their congregation as well as the larger community.
“The clergy in our temple have a real love of the arts, and we wanted to be able to open that up by providing these events,” she said.
The series began in January and has included performances by Jewish children’s musician Rick Recht, songwriter and music historian Lil’ Rev, and Golda Meir impersonator Joan Wolfberg.
Funding for the 2009/5769 Cultural Arts Series has come primarily from Temple B’nai Torah’s Hermine Pruzan Endowment Fund. Kinberg noted that the synagogue also partnered with other organizations to help bring artists to the Pacific Northwest, such as California-based cantor and composer Linda Hirschhorn, who performed at both B’nai Torah and Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia in February. All of the events, including Severino’s, have been free and open to the public.
“I think in this economy to have things that are free is nice and to bring people from all over the country is nice as well,” Kinberg said. “To be able to bring other elements of Jewish life to Seattle is definitely worthwhile. I think sometimes people feel a little isolated out here, culturally.”
Severino said that her concert will be something of an eclectic one, with her singing a number of original songs as well as some Jewish classics, jazz, R&B, “and maybe a little folk.”
She will be accompanied by jazz pianist Randy Halberstadt.
Severino has been involved in music almost all of her life. She was strongly influenced by her mother, Julie Mirel, a professional singer whose national career has included opera, symphony, cabaret, and musical theatre. Now 33, Severino has been playing the piano since she was 11 and the guitar since age 13. She is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, where she studied jazz, piano and composition. In 2004, she released her first album of original songs called Journey and is currently in the process of recording material for another.
Although her songs are intended for a wide audience, Severino noted that all of her music is influenced by her Judaism in some way or another.
“It runs through all the music that I do,” she said. “And some of my originals are Jewish as well.”
Severino is a graduate of the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle and as an adult worked as a music teacher for JDS. She said that she also worked on and off for B’nai Torah from the time she was 11 and has done “pretty much done every teaching job available” at the synagogue.
Kinberg noted that, although Severino is no longer a regular at Temple B’nai Torah, her musical contribution is familiar to most congregants.
“We use her music in our services,” Kinberg said. “She’s been quite influential for us. It’s definitely a treat to have her back to perform.”
Back to her roots
