Lectures on Jewish Music 1. The History of Music in Jewish Worship (1 hour with music examples.) Today, there are two types of music in Jewish worship: (1) chant (nusach) and (2) composed music.  Both derive from significant events in Jewish history.  The rise of synagogue song can be dated to the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E which put an end to the highly refined and professional instrumental music of the Levites.  The following prohibition against instruments resulted in a Jewish liturgical music which was strictly vocal (and became an oral folk tradition).  Jewish music was also transformed from a professional performance to an act of congregational prayer.  Professional Jewish musical composition only began again in the 16th century as a talented generation of Italian-Jewish composers (including Salamone de Rossi) was finally allowed to play, compose and publish music for a living.  The history of both strands are traced in this lecture. 2. Why This Jewish Past? Creating a Context for Music in the American Reform Movement (1 hour with music examples and discussion: delivered at the Second International Conference on Jewish Music) Early American Reform composers, like Janowski, Binder, Helfman, Fromm and Freed, agreed that music for synagogue should be musically Jewish.  They, therefore, retained (or inserted) "traditional" Jewish modes into the musical styles they inherited from Lewandowski and Sulzer, thus making their music more Jewish (and more "Russian sounding") than the "traditional" Western European Jewish music. American Reform music is still largely divided between music with some modal content (which sounds Jewish to an American/East European audience)  and music which doesn't sound Jewish in this context.  American Reform liturgical music is unique in the world of Jewish music.  Where the history of Jewish music is dominated by the assimilation of the musical culture of the new host country (it was, of course, only in Eastern Europe that Jewish music took this particular modal form in the first place) American Jewish music is dominated by the sounds of the old world.  Despite the claims to universality and Biblical modes, virtually all of the music heard in American Reform synagogues was originally composed in the last fifty years. 3. Why and What Should We Sing?  The Present and Future of Music in Jewish Worship (1 hour with music examples, singing and discussion) There are two issues which will continue to be at the center of debate about the type of music we should have in our services. (1) What is the proper balance between art music (performed by a professional cantor) and congregational singing.  More broadly, what is the role of music in a Jewish service. (2)  What style (or styles) are acceptable for our synagogues?  Thanks to the Diaspora, Jewish liturgical music is more varied than virtually any other religious music in the world.  A survey of current styles used in American services today is followed by a summary of the different views composers have on the two questions under consideration.  The session closes with a general discussion of these issues. View Jose Bowen's Contact Information