Good afternoon! I am so glad that you have chosen to spend some of your Sunday afternoon with me. Today’s concert is a survey of some of my favorite music that I have collected over the past decade, and I am eager to share it with you.

We will begin the program with a set of Yiddish art songs, including a composition that I completed earlier this year. Lazar Weiner, composer of “A Nigun”, was a strong proponent of Yiddish being present in the European art song repertoire, having penned hundreds of songs for solo voice and piano. “S’gebet" was born from a desire to create something new from something old. I came across the text while seeking Yiddish poetry, and found this particular piece from Israeli poet Yossel Birstein to beg for music. “In Kheyder” has been a popular showpiece in the repertoires of singers of Yiddish song for decades. Moses Milner composed a tongue-in-cheek caricature of an Old World religious school teacher, and I decided to interpret it as having two characters.

The second set is made up of music by two musicians who have played large parts in my development as a singer. Our pianist Bob Remstein arranged his “Mima’amakim” as a duet, which my father and I recorded on the album The Layered Path. We also recorded the following two songs, “Let Me Hear You Lord” and “Esa Einai”, by composer and CBB community member Judy Sanger.