Me and my roommates Aviva and Jon at our HUC big Thanksgiving Dinner

We've hit the 5-month mark!  It's so hard to believe that I've been living here for 5 months already!  Time seems to move more quickly here... 

Just this past Wednesday, our cantorial class held a master class with Cantor Benjamin Maissner.  He is a prominent Cantor in both the Reform and Conservative movements, and he is also a teacher.  He gave us a lecture on his uncle, Cantor Israel Alter.  Cantor Alter composed many Jewish pieces in a very traditional, Jewish, eastern European way.  A few of us each prepared an Alter piece to sing for Cantor Maissner.  He then helped each of us through specific parts of the piece, giving us suggestions on interpretation and vocal styles.  I sang "Atah Chonantanu."  I found it to be an incredibly difficult but beautiful piece.  The other cantorial students were great!  We have an 11th cantorial student who is not part of our class, but attends many of our classes.  He (yes, I said "he") is from the Abraham Geiger College in Germany and is in his 4th and final year of cantorial studies.  It's really nice to hear such a great tenor voice!  The class was very exciting, and I think we all got a lot out of it.

Now that we're in the last month of this semester, all of those final papers and tests are beginning to hang over my head.  We have finals during the week of January 5th.  There is a lot of work to be done!  Next Shabbat, I'll be chanting Haftarah.  The Shabbat after that, I'll be co-leading the music in services with another cantorial student.  And I believe it's the following Monday that I'll be chanting a short Torah portion.  

There's so much to do and surprisingly little time left in the semester!  I'm really looking forward to the Temple Emanuel trip here to visit!  I'm also looking forward to coming home in January for a few days!  It will be a needed break!  Talk to you soon!

Amanda