Anyone who happened to be at 24 Miodowa Street in the Kazimierz Jewish Quarter in Krakow at the beginning of the week probably wondered whether they were in Krakow, Poland, or standing on King George Street in Jerusalem, at the main entrance to the Great Synagogue, a few minutes before the start of the mass prayer of the first selihot.
Hundreds of Krakow residents, Jews and non-Jews, tourists and locals alike, participated this week in the prestigious cantor concert held at the Temple Synagogue in Krakow's Jewish Quarter.
The concert took place as part of the 'Jewish Culture Festival' in Krakow, which has become one of the most respected festivals for Jewish music and culture.
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The festival, which hosts over 200 performances, was founded in 1988 by Janusz Makoch, a great custodian of the heritage of Polish Jewry. Makoch founded the festival with the aim of bridging the gap between Polish and Jewish residents through the language of music, and to provide a worthy platform for Jewish culture, especially the culture of Polish Jewry before the Holocaust.
Over the years of the festival's existence, its cantor concert has become a tradition that repeats itself year after year, with the participation of the greatest cantors and musicians from all over the world.
A refreshing innovation took place this year, when the place of the great and veteran cantors was taken by young cantors - budding cantors, some of whom are even current students of the cantorship school, in a sign of promoting the younger generation of the cantoring world.
The concert, which opened with the song "Shalom Aleichem," featured the following young cantors: Moshe Fishel - Chief Cantor in Munich, Germany, Elazar Winograd, Avremi Kirshenbaum - Second Cantor at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, Yaakov Laer, Elazar Brook and Nachman Turgeman. The cantors were accompanied by the "Pamonim" ensemble, conducted by Yossi Schwartz. In addition to conducting, Schwartz also wrote the arrangements for the evening, and served as the musical director of the entire concert.
Accompanied on the piano by musician Menachem Bristovsky, who also amazed with his composition 'Dance of the Klezmer' at the recital concert on Sunday.
On the Saturday before the concert, the world-renowned cantor Ben-Zion Miller passed in front of the Ark at the synagogue.
In a conversation with Cantors10, a source in the cantor world says: "The ability to bring to the festival for the first time cantors who are all members of the 'younger generation' of the cantor world, combined with a choir that is also young and new, stemmed from the fact of the connection between the director of the cantor school, Yitzhak Rasi, and the concert producer Yossi Netkowitz. The two joined forces last year to jointly manage a production office specializing in the field.".
He adds: "It was also possible to see that most of the performers at the concert are represented by the production office of the concert producers.".
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