Musical Moments @ Adas Israel
Brought to you by Cantor Arianne Brown and the Musical Moments Committee
Music is an integral part of our community. When our voices join together, we feel embraced by each other’s energy and a communal spirit that uplifts us. Join us for an inspiring and uplifting array of musical programs at Adas Israel. We hope to see you here!
Upcoming Events
Shabbat A Cappella with Shir Appeal
Friday, January 6- Saturday, January 7
Click Here to Listen to Ivdu Et Hashem B'simcha by Shir Appeal
Shir Appeal will sing during Friday night TEM Kabbalat Shabbat (register here for a community dinner), in the Smith Sanctuary for Shabbat morning, and more!
Shir Appeal, Tufts University's mixed-gender Jewish a capella group, is touring the D.C. area in January 2023! Shir Appeal has toured in Los Angeles, Florida, New York, and Philadelphia, performing at synagogues, nursing homes, day schools, private parties, and fundraisers. It is our goal to share our love for Jewish music and spread Jewish messages with audiences all over.
MLK Shabbat Morning Service
Featuring Musical Guests Roderick Giles & Grace Gospel Choir
Saturday, January 14 at 9:30am
Click Here to Join Live
Join us for our MLK weekend Shabbat morning service including music honoring Dr. King, by musical guests Roderick Giles & Grace Gospel Choir.
Roderick Giles & Grace Gospel Choir: Roderick Giles is an active member of the Southern Baptist Church Praise and Worship Center where he formed the SBC Chorale—the choir who won the Verizon Wireless "How Sweet the Sound" regional choir competition for two consecutive years. He is also the owner of Giles Music Group, LLC. Roderick is the Founder and Director of two multi-talented groups "EXTOL" and "Grace" and is a dedicated member and a lead soloist of Patrick Lundy and the Ministers of Music.
Stepping Back In: The Waters of Return (Covenant Concert)
Saturday night February 4, 23 at 7pm | Click Here to Register!
Celebrate Shabbat Shirah with a musical journey through time, space, memorial and healing. Together, we take communal, ritual steps to process the pandemic and to enter our next phase of life.
Performers include Theater J, Cantor Arianne Brown, Micah Hendler, Flash Choir, and top DC musicians. You will experience transformative congregational song and prayer, meaningful musical moments, and original theater inspired by our congregants’ pandemic experiences.
This concert is supported by Covenant Foundation grant.
A New Opera in Concert ‘Geniza: Hidden Fragments’ By Arnold Saltzman
Sunday, April 23 from 4:00 PM-6:00 PM in the Charles E. Smith Sanctuary
Jews living in Egypt since ancient times? Recovering documents and fragments of an unknown history? Sill revealing secrets of the past from the greatest historic document collection ever found? Modern methods of piecing together fragments from around the globe?
Religious tolerance in the Age of the Crusades, Women run businesses, correspondence with India and Persia, letters of the most famous figures of the 12th-13th centuries including Maimonides and Halevi.
An operatic retelling of the story of Solomon Schechter and the discovery in Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue of an attic which contained 1000 years of documentary fragments of history acquired, and in the opera, woven with a 12th century love story, and lost love.
Geniza: Hidden Fragments will be a featured opera in concert presented by Adas Israel Congregation with members of the Chesapeake Orchestra forming a Klezmer/Chamber ensemble, and eight opera singers with national and international reputations conducted by Jeffrey Silberschlag.
This new opera, Geniza: Hidden Fragments, is a 90-minute neoclassical light opera, with arias and ensembles in a melodic and memorable setting with the libretto of Arnold Saltzman, who has drawn upon some of the writings and texts of Solomon and Mathilde Schechter, and twin sisters and scholars Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson.
Musical Moments @ Adas Israel
Get Involved!
Adas Choirs
Flash Choir
Did you sing in your high school choir or college a cappella group? Perhaps you just enjoy singing with others and even harmonizing on your own? Or maybe you have formal training and time makes it difficult to immerse yourself in music? This is a group for you! The Flash Choir is a commit-per-event choir. The only requirement is being able to sing on key. Contact cantor.brown@adasisrael.org to join!
Kolot
Kolot is our youth choir, for students in grades 3-6. Come join us on select Sunday mornings to sing, learn music, and perform with Cantor Ari! Contact cantor.brown@adasisrael.org to join!
Kolot: The Young Voices of Adas Israel
Sundays 12-1 including pizza lunch: 11/6, 12/4, 1/8, 1/29
Do You Like To Sing? Then come and be part of Kolot, the young voices of Adas Israel with Cantor Arianne Brown! To register, please email
cantor.brown@adasisrael.org with your name and grade. Kolot will sing at Lechu Neranena Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday 1/20 and at Shabbat morning service on Saturday 2/4.
DC Klezmer Workshop
Klezmer Dates: Sept. 11, Nov. 20, Dec.18, Jan. 22, Feb. 12, March 19, April 16, May 21, June 11 @1-4:30 PM
DC Klezmer Workshop is an informal but enthusiastic collective of Metro Area musicians. We meet monthly at Adas Israel to learn and play klezmer tunes together by ear and from sheet music. Join us from 2-4pm in the Gewirz Beit Am.
Contact howard_ungar@yahoo.com
Composers' Corner
Composers' Corner with Cantor Elana Rozenfeld
Wednesday, June 21st at 12pm on Facebook Live
Elana Rozenfeld is a cantor, performer, songwriter and theatre artist, who grew up steeped in musical theatre, jazz, chazzanut (traditional cantorial singing) and Yeshiva music, while also having a secret love of all things Sephardic. After receiving her BFA at the Tisch School of the Arts in NYU, focusing on solo performance, she entered the HL Miller Cantorial School at JTS to develop mastery of her Jewish musical traditions. Since then, she has served as cantor at Park Avenue Synagogue in NYC and Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, MA. Elana also served as the interim director of the School for Jewish Music at Hebrew College in Newton, MA. Today, Elana lives in Kiryat Tivon, Israel, with her husband and three children, enjoying being a freelancing, singing, performing, and songwriting mommy.
Archived Videos
Sim Shalom Premiere
Click Here to Learn the Music & Watch the Video
Sim Shalom - composed by Noah Aronson and the Adas Crowdsource Composition Workshop
Sponsored in loving memory of Sophie and Howard Amchin
Virtual Choir
"L'Dor Vador" - Adas Israel 3rd Grade Virtual Choir
Each year, Adas Israel's 3rd graders learn and sing Josh Nelson's "L'Dor Vador" for Chagigat HaSiddur. We are pleased that many of our 3rd graders continued that tradition, virtually!
"Ma Ashiv" Virtual Choir
We hope you enjoy this performance of "Ma Ashiv" (composed by our very own Cantor Arianne Brown!) sung by our talented Adas community at Pesach.
Adas Israel Virtual Choir
Od'cha by Stephen Glass
We hope this music will stand as a unique and meaningful experience of blending our Adas voices in holy song at this time.
"Halleluyah" by Adas Israel's Virtual Choir
Click Here to Watch!
Thank you so much to our Adas Israel Virtual Choir for the energy and beauty they have shared with their faces and voices. We hope this music will stand as a unique and meaningful experience of blending our Adas voices in holy song at this time. When you look back on this time of isolation, we hope you will think of our virtual choir as a shining bright spot. Halleluyah!
"We Are Adas" Virtual Choir
Click Here to Watch!
This year, the Ma'alot class worked with Micah Hendler and Raise Your Voice Labs to write and produce an original song. See the final result here!
Special Programs
Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend at Adas Israel
Martin Luther King Shabbat Collaboration with Roderick Giles & Grace Gospel Choir.
“Light the Legend” Livestreamed Hanukkah Concert
Click Here to Watch the Archive
As we light our menorahs together and say goodbye to Shabbat, we embrace the ways we can celebrate Chanukah together this year. Light the Legend features a celebration of Hebrew, English, Ladino, and Yiddish music. With an array of professional musicians and singers, community faces and voices, as well a singalong grand finale of beloved Chanukah standards!
Composers' Corner
Composers’ Corner Havdallah with Zach Mayer
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Hazzan Joanna Dulkin
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Rabbi Yosef Goldman
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Laurie Akers
Click Here To Watch
Composers’ Corner with Cantor Sol Zim
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Cantor Sarah Myerson
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Cantor Meir Finkelstein
Click Here to Watch
Roderick Giles, of Giles & Grace Gospel Choir Light
Click Here To Watch
Composers’ Corner with Cantor Gerald Cohen
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Eliana Light
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Dr. Michael Isaacson
Click Here to Watch
Ellen Allard: “The Queen of Jewish early childhood music”
Click Here To Watch
Composers’ Corner with Cantor Magda Fishman
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Noah Aronson
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Ramón Tasat
Click Here to Watch
Composers’ Corner with Zamar Ben
Click Here to Watch
High Holy Days 5781
The month of Elul begins the journey toward the High Holy Days. Prepare for the spirit of these days with the lineup below of beautiful music videos and songs.
"B'rosh Hashanah" by Adas Israel's Virtual Choir
Untaneh Tokef with Cantor Arianne Brown
P'tach Lanu Shaar
Hayom T'amtseinu
Sim Shalom
Avinu Malkeinu
Shehecheyanu
