Lift your voice in prayer

VIDEO - Most likely, you won’t hear the music presented here on the radio. For the occasion of Rosh Hashana, we present to you prayers and cantillation performed by Udi Spielman and his band. The style of the originally executions combines gospel, Jazz and classical musical styles. Believe us, it’s worth watching. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Spielman, 55, was one of the most famous wedding singers in the 1980s. Together with his band “Afifon” (Kite), Spielman performed at thousands of weddings and events in Israel and overseas. It wasn’t until 2000 that he discovered the magic of cantorship. “A few days before I was supposed to perform at a Bar Mitzvah, the mother of the family said the event was Orthodox,” Spielman recalls. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t have women participate in the show, nor could I organize co-ed dancing. I managed to put together a Hassidic line-up for the event, while I spent most of the time watching from the sidelines. At a certain point I went up to sing and the leader of the band told me, ‘You have the voice of a cantor, you need to learn cantorship.’” And that is how Spielman stumbled towards the world of cantoring, all the while mining memories of both his cantor grandfathers. Despite serving as a singer in the Air Force band during his army service, Spielman only learned how to read music when he started studying cantoring. “I’m a little dyslexic,” Spielman says. “Reading notes is very hard for me. I’m not really a cantor yet. I’m on the way. It takes many years to get into it.” “I started studying with Naftali Herstik, a great cantor who heads the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute,” Spielman says. “Afterwards, Herstik referred me to another teacher, who joined me up with the greatest cantorial pianist, Raymond Goldstein. I fell in love with it so much that I almost couldn’t sing pop music anymore. Now I keep the Sabbath, as a direct result of cantoring. You can’t pray for people and not keep the Sabbath. I certainly believe this world is beyond our comprehension. It can’t be that everything starts and ends in the natures of man.” About two years ago Spielman put out the album “Seveb – voice and spirit.” The special executions of “Haben yakir li Ephraim,” composed of words from a Rosh Hashana prayer, and the chilling “Magen Avot,” taken from the Aravit Sabbath prayer, are arranged by Michael Gluzman, a gifted musician from the Israeli opera who joins Spielman with Israeli opera singers Aviel, Tal, Igor and Mark. Additionally, you can watch Spielman performing another version of “Haben yakir li Ephraim,” arranged by musician Yaron Bechar and composed by cantor Shalom Katz.

Lift your voice in prayer

(VIDEO) Ynet presents prayers, cantillation performed by Udi Spielman, one of the most famous 1980s wedding singers