America

A ...look at the musical world of immigrant Jews, who, in finding and creating an expressive medium for self-identity, helped shape and give life to American popular culture (from "Ethnomusicology")

An overview of the history and ethnography of the American cantorial as practices in Conservative synagogues, based on extensive interviews with its practitioners (cantors) and the institutions of training. Also discusses musical aspects of the repertoire.

Appeared also in the "Journal of Synagogue Music" 18 (1988).

An examination of the relation between the Jews and the Art Music in the Ottoman Empire. Historical background, written and oral sources, and analysis through one musical and textual example.

The system that defines the musical and liturgical practices of the Ashkenazi synagogue also delineates various degrees of freedom as to how the prayers are sung. In North America these practices took on characteristic changes, including those beyond the built-in freedom. The paper examines a few cases studies in which these changes are reflected, primarily in regards to the norm of performance, and examines their possible roots.

The move from "Old-World" Europe to modern and late-modern America, so far as the traditional discipline of nusach is concerned, marked the transition from varied personal versions and variants within a well-defined modal structure to a practice that is significantly more uniform yet free of the formal considerations.