Dellheim Cantorial Senior Recital

Dellheim Cantorial Senior Recital

H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music of The Jewish Theological Seminary presents the John Leopold and Martha Dellheim Senior Recital, featuring graduating seniors Gil Ezring and Joshua Kowitz.

Monday, December 11, 2017, 7:00 p.m.

About the Program

Join Gil Ezring and Joshua Kowitz for an exciting evening of music and spirit as they share their talents and their vision for the 21st-century cantorate. The recital will feature a wide range of great Jewish music—hazzanut, Israeli art songs, contemporary styles, choral works, and original compositions—in Hebrew, English, and Yiddish. Joyce Rosenzweig, adjunct instructor, is the pianist for this concert, which will also feature the H. L. Miller Cantorial School Chorus, conducted by Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn.

The concert is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.

RSVP

About the Performers

With an extensive background and passion for music in its varying styles, Gil Ezring has taught music in public school, religious school, and camp settings. Prior to JTS he was a founding member of Rock HaRuach, a band at Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina, which leads congregational services on Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah. During his time at JTS, Gil has led services and programming for all age groups at synagogues all over the eastern seaboard, including a weekly Shabbat service for PreK-1st grade families, family High Holiday services, musical services, and as High Holiday hazzan. He has worked as an intern with Cantor Louis Cattan at the Conservative Synagogue in Westport, Connecticut, and Hazzan Matthew Austerklein at Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County in Bethesda, Maryland. He acted as hazzan for the High Holidays for the first two years of the Young Professionals Service at Sutton Place Synagogue in Manhattan, as well as at Temple Beth Israel of the Palisades in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Gil has worked in different educational settings including Camp Zeke as songleader and music director, Camp Ramah Darom as mashgiach and b’nei mitzvah tutor, and teacher in many different synagogue religious schools. Gil is also a Jewish singer/songwriter. He and his sister make up the Jewish musical duo, AGEz, specializing in Jewish rock/country/folk music.

Joshua Kowitz, baritone, is the cantor at Temple Sinai in Middletown, New York, a position he has held since August 2016. He is particularly proud of his educational work in the community for both children and adults. In spring 2016 he headlined the Cantor’s Concert with Hazzan Steven Stoehr, performing Israeli music from pre-statehood to the present day. He is currently planning another concert in March of 2018 entitled Jewish Jazz, which will be the primary synagogue fundraiser of the year. Josh has always surrounded himself with music and grew up in a musical household; he is the son of Cantor Mitchell Kowitz.

Previously, Joshua served as the cantorial intern at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Maryland, and student cantor at White Meadow Temple, in White Meadow Lake, New Jersey, from 2014-2016. Joshua received his bachelor of music in vocal performance from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 2012. Prior to coming to JTS, Josh sang in the chorus of the Minnesota Opera and performed in amateur and professional musical theatre productions in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. 

Joyce Rosenzweig is an internationally recognized pianist, conductor, master class presenter, lecturer, coach, arranger, and authority on Jewish art and synagogue music. She has performed in concerts throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and Israel, and is a dedicated educator of cantors and synagogue musicians, having served for over twenty-five years on the faculty of Hebrew Union College-Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, where she holds the title of Artist-in-Residence. She has been a faculty member at The Jewish Theological Seminary’s H. L. Miller Cantorial School since 2004, and has served as music director of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan since 1994. Ms. Rosenzweig studied piano performance at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music; choral conducting at Westminster Choir College; Yiddish at Oxford University and JTS; and art song and chamber music at the Banff Centre of the Arts (Canada), Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Festival, and Franz Schubert Institute (Vienna), where she was awarded first prize in lieder accompaniment. She has collaborated in chamber music recitals with ensembles from the New York Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and appeared as soloist with the New Orleans Philharmonic and Texas Festival Orchestra under the baton of Leon Fleisher.