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MUSIC REVIEW

Zamir Chorale concert reflects range of Jewish composers

By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff, 6/11/2002

ince 1969 Joshua Jacobson and the Zamir Chorale have been exploring the Jewish musical heritage for a large and loyal public. Jacobson has a gift for programming that is instructive and entertaining, and more often than not, the Zamir Chorale performs works that music lovers would be unlikely to hear anyplace else.

Sunday night's concert was devoted to Jewish composers in the United States, and it ranged from serious settings of the liturgy in various musical styles to music from the Yiddish theater and Broadway and popular hits. Several of the composers were or are from Boston - Leonard Bernstein, Charles Osborne, Arthur Berger, and Robbie Solomon, and there were tributes to Bernstein, to the late Robert Starer, and to Berger, who celebrated his 90th birthday May 15.

Berger was represented by ''Tov Lebodos,'' probably an early piece. Jacobson lauded its ''sturdy neoclassicism,'' but the performance brought out its amazing quicksilver qualities. Zamir commissioned Starer's ''Psalms of Woe and Joy'' in 1976; it is study in strong contrasts and in compositional know-how. Alice Parker (born in 1925) was the one non-Jewish composer; Zamir gave the Boston premiere of her ''An American Kedushah,'' composed in 1999, a graceful bilingual setting of the sacred text, with tenor and soprano solos nicely sung by Mark Kagan and Cantor Louise Treitman.

Throughout the serious part of the program, one was struck at how assimilative the composers were, taking on any American style (all the way up to jazz and rock) while never compromising a core spiritual and musical identity.

The lighter numbers included Irving Berlin's ''God Bless America,'' ''It Ain't Necessarily So'' from George and Ira Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess,'' ''Dona, Dona'' and ''Bei mir bist du schoen'' by Sholom Secunda and Ziggy Elman's ''And the Angels Sing.'' Several of these were sung in deft choral arrangements by Jacobson, with equally deft instrumental arrangements by Art Bailey, with splendid solos by Ted Casher (clarinet) and Mike Peipman (trumpet).

There was also a large number of capable vocal soloists, many drawn from the ensemble, along with some distinguished guests like Charles Klaus (heard to good effect in several numbers - he didn't look like Sportin' Life, but he surely sounded the part) and Cantor Aryeh Finklestein whose dodgy, ornate solo in ''Chad Gadyo'' came close to stealing the show.

It was a generous program, and not all of it sounded rehearsed with equal meticulousness, but the chorale distinguished itself for versatility, buoyant tone, careful intonation, and vigor of spirit.

The Zamir Chorale of Boston

Joshua Jacobson, artistic director

At: Jordan Hall, Sunday evening

This story ran on page D2 of the Boston Globe on 6/11/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.