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= Synopsis =
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This project began as a series of conceptual explorations in Jewish electronic music. The first was a Gematria-based sonification of Torah passages, but once I started working in SuperCollider—having never used it before—I realized the idea didn’t hold. It was more about projecting structure onto noise than revealing anything meaningful.
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I’m a composer and sound artist working on a record that transforms Jewish Golden Age Cantorial recordings as the source for an electronic album; one that goes beyond conventional sampling. The project involves decomposing the source into partials using analysis methods, then using those partials to control synth parameters and be the source for spectral morphing and granular synthesis. This means extracting the vocal phrasing of a Chazzan — its envelope, its timbral contour — and applying that expressivity to a synthesizer, but that's just one of several techniques that I'm exploring.
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The second iteration centered on the idea of spectral resynthesis using Golden Age cantorial recordings. The plan was to decompose the recordings into partials and envelopes, then use that data to drive synthesis systems—to let the phrasing and gesture of the Chazzan modulate new sound, as well as serve as material for spectral morphing and granular synthesis. But I wanted the project to be more than a gesture toward expressivity. I wanted it to be structurally Jewish.
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My aim is to bring cantorial music to a new generation through reinvention. This reflects a deeply Jewish relationship to tradition: honoring the past while reinterpreting it into new forms. Just as cantorial music once moved beyond the synagogue and found success in concert halls and on recordings, I hope to continue that trajectory in today’s sonic language.
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That led to a shift. After speaking with my Chazzan, I realized I didn’t have access to the same systems of oral transmission or theoretical training that historical Chazzanim did. Rather than trying to reconstruct something closed off to me, I turned to a range of Jewish music theories—some still in use, others fragmented or neglected. These frameworks now shape the next phase of the project.
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Central Question: How can I let this music live again — in a form that’s mine, in a language I speak — without losing its soul?
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What began as curiosity became something more urgent as I confronted the state of Jewish music in Reform Judaism—where it’s often dulled for accessibility to a heavily assimilated American audience. That realization turned the project into a matter of responsibility: to help restore cultural memory and spiritual engagement in the shul, and to take seriously the historical question that Judaism has always returned to—how to integrate modernity into tradition without erasing either one.
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= Philosophy =
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What made me feel like I had to do something with Yiddish fiction and cantorial recordings was a trip to Kraków and Auschwitz. Being there made me realize what was at stake, and what my role was in it. It took time to make sense of it, but the urgency I felt eventually turned into a commitment.
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In the present "consensus" reality that has divorced itself from religion and philosophy and claims psychology as its new mentor, why do I engage with religion, and why specifically Judaism? It's been too long ago for me to remember what sparked my engagement with Judaism — but that's not really the question worth asking. The question worth asking is why do I still continue to engage with Judaism when at any point I could choose to disengage, walk away, and forget about it? I choose to engage with Judaism because I choose to engage with existence, not letting existence be something that just happens to me.
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To anyone that thinks religion is a relic of the past, I'd like for them to consider that maybe religion isn't the problem — maybe it's our relationship with it. If someone's idea of being religious is rule-following without reason or blind faith as a test of loyalty, then maybe they should consider that if you follow rules without reason, you're not able to reason with them or adapt them to the needs of our times. This is self-oppression.
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Jewish music was never about repeating the tradition rotely, but about seeking ways to adapt it to new contexts that are relevant to us and our evolving aural palette. Discovering ways to reimagine the tradition is the real challenge, and it's creatively demanding. This project is my engagement with Judaism.
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The first time I heard those cantorial recordings, they sounded completely alien — ancient, desperate, textured, spiritual. There’s a certain urgency in them, made more intense by the degradation of the recordings and the weight of their historical context. They’re noisy, raw, full of imperfections — and that’s part of what makes them feel sacred. I’ve never cried more to any art than I have to Golden Age Cantorial records and Yiddish literature.
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I love those records. I love that literature. I can’t let the things I love fade into obscurity if there’s anything I can do about it.
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I seek to bring this tradition to a new audience in a way that honors its texture and emotional urgency.
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