The sound of music — specifically Jewish choral music — sung by teens was rare in the Bay Area until last year, when Dave and Melinda Joffe of Mountain View started the Silicon Valley chapter of HaZamir, an international Jewish high school choir.
HaZamir has 31 chapters in the U.S. and Israel. In addition to local performances and regional retreats, every year about 400 choir members learn a shared repertoire of classical and contemporary Jewish choral music and perform together in New York.
On April 3, the Silicon Valley chapter sang with the other choirs in a sold-out, two-hour concert at Carnegie Hall. So how did it go?
“It was just incredible,” Becca Kitt, 14, said an hour after the concert. “We were on stage at Carnegie Hall, where so many amazing people have stood, and it felt so cool to be there and to have this experience with 400 other singers.” Becca is a freshman at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto.
Judy Kitt, Becca’s mom, added, “It was so inspiring to hear these young people, who all sounded like accomplished vocalists, singing Jewish choral music by Jewish composers. It was an emotional experience.”
Elana Selman, a sophomore at Fusion Academy of San Mateo, also declared the concert a success. “It was fantastic. We sounded really good, too — a big, full sound,” she said. Her grandparents, an uncle, an aunt and cousins who live on the East Coast all came to the concert.
Not bad for a chapter’s inaugural season.
Early in 2015, the Joffes contacted the national HaZamir office in New York for help establishing a chapter. Then they publicized the choir at schools, synagogues and youth groups in the Bay Area.
“We heard from kids from all over the Bay Area, from Belmont to San Jose, kids from eighth grade to 12th grade, from all different schools and synagogues,” Dave Joffe said. “They were all kids who love to sing.” After 21 teens auditioned in May, seven girls and seven boys were chosen for the choir.
Since September, the choir has rehearsed two hours every Sunday at Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto. Preparing for the concert in New York City, they learned 10 songs, most of them in Hebrew, with Jewish composers.
“The music represents many genres, everything from old-school cantorial settings to contemporary Israeli songs, with some classical music as well,” said choir director and conductor Hannah Druckman.
A violinist and choral singer, Druckman, 34, also teaches music and directs a chorus at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View. Before she signed on with HaZamir, she was familiar with the choir because her cousins sing with the Los Angeles chapter.
“I’d always heard great things about HaZamir and I had seen how much my cousins enjoyed singing serious choral music,” Druckman said. “After speaking with the Joffes, I said I would get involved. I feel privileged to be part of this amazing movement.”
Days before leaving for New York, Druckman acknowledged the concert represented a big step for a new chapter, but she was confident it would go well. “They will be blown away by this experience, singing at Carnegie Hall with 400 other teens,” she said. “But they are an amazing group, very committed, and they have really connected through the music and Judaism.”
That’s exactly what Harrison Burke, 13, had in mind. “I had just finished my bar mitzvah last year when I learned about the audition, and I wanted to be in HaZamir as a way to continue to explore my Jewish identity,” he said. Harrison is in eighth grade at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose.
Druckman said some of the teens are experienced singers; some are not. “Some have sung in choirs, some have done musical theater and some have instrumental backgrounds,” she said. “When you look at where we were at our first rehearsal and where we are now, I can’t believe how far the kids have come.”
HaZamir Silicon Valley will hold an open house on May 15. For more information email [email protected].