New web site, Cantorate database

NEW WEBSITE OF INTEREST TO:

Jewish Music
Ethnomusicology
Musicology
Music Theory
Cantors and Synagogue Musicians
Jewish Studies
Religious Studies
American Studies

http://cantorate.wesleyan.edu

This site contains all the raw data of the 1984-86 NEH-funded project “History of the American Cantorate,” directed by Mark Slobin.

• over 100 listenable oral history interviews of cantors
• the listenable 93-cantor core sample of sung selections of 8 liturgical texts, a first in Jewish music studies;
• the questionnaire survey responses of hundreds of cantors and lay leaders;
• letters solicited from rabbis about working with cantors;
• research reports and data summaries commissioned for the project;
• ongoing addition of archival documentation of the American cantorate.

The book Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989) summarizes this work, but the actual database has not been available till now.

This is a joint project of Wesleyan University (Mark Slobin) and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Mark Kligman)

The site will be continuously expanded with new data on the topic of the American cantorate.

Contact: mslobin at wesleyan.edu