The York Cantors

Three amazingly talented young cantors, already rising stars on the world Jewish music scene, are brought together in Amsterdam's revered 17th century Portuguese Synagogue for a concert of Jewish sacred and secular music. The New York Cantors, all serving synagogues in New York, are: Brooklyn-born Yaakov (Yanky) Lemmer, Cantor of the Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York City, Azi Schwartz, a native of Israel and Cantor at New York's Park Avenue Synagogue. and Netanel Hershtik, also Israeli-born and Cantor at The Hampton Synagogue, Westhampton Beach, New York. Some of the most beautiful songs in the Jewish musical history are prayers sung by cantors during shabbat services. For this concert these ancient songs have been given splendid new arrangements by the accomplished Dutch composer/arranger Bob Zimmerman. The program also includes favorite secular songs evoking memories of Jewish tradition and its rich musical culture, as well as music with a nod to Broadway. Maestro Jules van Hessen and his 34-piece orchestra and 8-voice male choir support the concert recorded under a thousand live candles in one of the most architecturally and historically famous synagogues in the world. The New York Cantors concert reprises an earlier project for PBS in the same synagogue, Cantors, A Faith in Song. That ground-breaking recording became a popular staple of PBS station programming for Jewish holidays and fund-raising drives for years following its premiere in 2003.