Volume 16, Number 2 - Cantors Assembly

12
experience of having participated in
even the most modest performance
retains its flavor and its excitement for
years.
All of this applies, of course, to
teenage groups, youth groups, and
adult groups. Programs for meetings,
holiday celebrations, special events in
the life of the congregation must be
enhanced by music; and the cantor is
the one who must both create the
demand for it and satisfy that demand.
There is no doubt that we shall,
from time to time, come upon gifted
singers who possess the piety and the
voice to become cantors of the old
type, men who could walk in the steps
of a Rosenblatt, a Katchko, a Roitman
or a Kwartin. Men of this sort may not
be qualified to serve in the varied roles
which we have outlined here for the
cantor of tomorrow. For men of this
type, there must always be room in
some synagogues. They have enriched
our tradition, and brought profound
satisfaction to thousands of Jews.
They would probably find a place
for their talents in the larger synagogues
which can afford to engage
additional personnel to perform the
other tasks assigned to the cantor in
this presentation. But they will certainly
be the exceptions. In speaking of
the cantorate as a whole, I have tried to
visualize the scope of work which will
fall to the lot of the many, rather than
Personal Relations
The all-round musical personality-singer,
conductor, teacher, group
leader, composer, arranger and representative
of Jewish music to the people-is
perhaps an ideal rarely to be
realized. (Perhaps the ideal rabbi, too,
consists only in some Platonic realm of
perfection.) But it seems to me that this
ought to become the goal of the cantor.
If it does, and it is realized even to a
partial degree, he will find that he must
come into more intimate relationships
with other functionaries of the congregation
than ever before. And this
requires a measure of sensitivity to
other people without which he and his
work will suffer.
Perhaps I may be prejudiced in my
approach to this problem, but it appears
to me that, in any institution, one person
must assume responsibility for the
overall program; in the synagogue, that
person is the rabbi. The cantor, together
with all other members of a synagogue
staff and faculty must accept this fact.
This does not mean that the rabbi
should be arbitrary and dictatorial. It
does not necessarily imply that the cantor
must merely obey instructions. On
the contrary, he should be considered,
and he should consider himself, the
expert in the field of musical activity.
But whatever his enthusiasm for his
own area of interest, he must defer to
the one who is responsible for coordinating
and integrating all aspects
the unusual few. of the synagogue program. Sometimes