Concert of the Synagogal Ensemble Berlin
Sukat Shalom Synagogue
28. january 2019.
On Monday, January 28, at the Belgrade Synagogue Sukat Shalom, the audience enjoyed the spiritual compositions, of mostly Ashkenazi traditions, in the performance of the Synagogal Ensemble from Belrin, led by conductor Regina Yantian and cantor Icaak Sheffer and the Baruch Brothers Choir conducted by Stefan Zekic.
Synagogal Ensemble Berlin
The ensemble consists of eight to twelve singers who work as freelance soloists or belong to the Berlin opera choirs. The Synagogal Ensemble Berlin is the only ensemble in the world that brings the liturgy of Louis Lewandowski to music every Friday night, Shabbat morning and on all Jewish holidays.
In his concerts with the Synagogal Ensemble Berlin, Cantor Isaac Sheffer brings this unique Jewish-German tradition into the world, with compositions by other great composers of the 19th century such as Salomon Sulzer and Samuel Naumbourg as well as from the 20th century such as Kurt Weill, Maurice Ravel, Ben Steinberg, Meir Finkelstein and others. The ensemble performs again and again in Poland, England and France.
Regina Yantian, director of the Ensemble
Already at the age of 12, Regina Yantian became interested in organ music. At the age of fifteen, she began her education as an organist and choirmaster and subsequently studied comparative musicology and Jewish studies in Jerusalem and Berlin. Since 1998 she has been the organist and choirmaster of the synagogue Pestalozzistraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg. For many years Yantian sang herself in the synagogue choir and got her artistic impulses through her work with Cantor Estrongo Nachama. She is also the director of the Synagogue Ensemble Berlin, which is known far beyond the borders of Berlin. Yantian is particularly proud of her latest project: since 2011 she has been Artistic Director of the Louis Lewandowski Festival, inviting synagogue choirs from all over the world to dedicate themselves to Louis Lewandowski's tradition. As part of the cultural program, the municipalities have two programs to choose from European and American Synagogal Music of the 19th and 20th Century and Jewish songs from Eastern Europe and Israel.
