When my colleague, Rabbi Sarah Marion, from Oheb Shalom in Baltimore reached out and asked for the music to Rise Up I was delighted. At the same time, I wondered if there’d truly be enough time before Rosh Hashanah to
Come, Come Whoever You Are by Noah Aronson
Last year, The Davis Academy hosted Noah Aronson. It was my first time meeting him and it was immediately apparent why he’s such a sought after artist in residence. Fast forward to last week, when someone posted this music video
Celebrating our Human Voice: S’lichot at The Temple
Last night, I had the honor of leading a S’lichot program at my home congregation, The Temple. Over the course of two hours our congregation gathered in a generous and engaged spirit for study, spiritual writing, and worship. It was
L’chah Dodi
One of my more “popular” Jewish liturgical settings is a melody I wrote to the medieval hymn, L’chah Dodi. L’chah Dodi is sung during Kabbalat Shabbat, the Friday night prayer service that welcomes Shabbat. It describes two companions going out
Poems and Stories
I recently had a chance to become aware of a bias of mine. It’s a songwriting bias. The bias is this: when I write songs I think of them as poems set to music. There I’ve said it. When I
On the language of giving and receiving
I’ve always loved language. And over the last decade or so I’ve come to love language even more because language is at the heart of songwriting. More than blogging or journaling. Certainly more than emailing, texting, or tweeting. And in