Reviews/Press
Kolot HaLev participates in many regional events
May 21, 2017 – Ohr Kodesh Congregation
Annual Concert 2017
It was grand! You should be proud of your chorale and your special soloists…I learned something new, even as I thought about certain ideas and trends in the history of ideas that I had not considered for some time. Now, I have some new works to explore more thoroughly in the coming days. Well done! You will really have to labor to top this. It was a grand moment. Savor it! Thank you again for sharing the moment. Un exito grandississimo!
— Russell Moore
…somewhere up there in New Jersey there are groups of people who are as passionate as we are about Jewish choral music.
March 19, 2017 – Cherry Hill, New Jersey
A Jewish Choir Extravaganza
Kolot HaLev singers braved the morning snow showers and traveled north to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for the Jewish Choir Extravaganza. Our destination was the beautiful Temple Emanuel, where we were warmly greeted by welcoming temple members and singers of the two choirs with whom we were spending the day.
Dr. Julia Zavadsky is the Artistic Director of both Nashira, a community-based chorale drawing singers from the greater Philadelphia region, and Kol Emanuel, the synagogue choir of Temple Emanuel. We had the honor of singing under Dr. Zavadsky’s direction at the Shalshelet Sixth International Festival in December, and again for our annual Day of Learning workshop in February.
During lunch and rehearsals, Kolot members had the opportunity to get to know our new New Jersey friends. We already knew we had in common a love of Jewish music and a love of singing. After working hard to blend the various groups, and become more familiar with the musicians and directors, we could begin to appreciate our new sound. What amazing music filled the sanctuary during the afternoon concert! Each choir shared some favorite pieces with each other and the audience. We sang together other pieces and were excited by the wonderful sound produced by so many voices.
We carried home the satisfaction of entertaining an appreciative audience, having the experience to sing again some of our favorites, and hearing new music we might want to learn. And, also, knowing that somewhere up there in New Jersey there are groups of people who are as passionate as we are about Jewish choral music.
January 30, 2017 • 7 pm
Concert at the Italian Embassy
Kolot HaLev choir, upon the invitation by The Embassy of Italy, performed at the Washington, D.C. embassy in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The event was organized by the Embassy of Italy / ItalyInUS, the Embassy of Israel and in collaboration with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The concert was been sold out. but was streamed live on the Italian embassy’s Facebook page.
In addition, the Italian Cultural Institute and Embassy of Israel presented the photo exhibit Return of Life – The Holocaust Survivors: from Liberation to Rehabilitation. The event includes the testimony of Rachel Mutterperl Goldfarb, Holocaust survivor, and the performance of Cantata Ebraica by Kolot HaLev, a Jewish community choir, in a musical program of Jewish Italian selections by Bolaffi, Marcello and Puccini.
Teaching the World to Sing
by Lisa Traiger, Arts Correspondent
Ramon Tasat wants to teach the world to sing. The Buenos Aires-born cantor believes singing is everyone’s birthright, even the guy whose high school music teacher told him he could join the choir only if he moved his lips silently. Or Aunt Sylvia, who everyone tries to hush at the family seder.
“I have noticed in my life as a musician that singing has been an outlet of enormous spiritual recognition for most people,” Tasat said last week, “because one cannot separate cleanly the fact that when one sings, one is truly oneself.”
Tasat is the founder of Kolot HaLev, a Jewish community choir that requires no audition. This weekend the group celebrates its fifth anniversary with On the Wings of Song, a program celebrating contemporary Israeli composers, which takes place Sunday afternoon at Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase.
Shalshelet International Festival
Jan 13, 2009
“No Rock Like You: Songs for the Jewish Soul”
“”What an absolutely amazing evening it was…The soloists were all first class, and the Choir was in TOP FORM. … Hats off to Dr. Tasat and all the others involved in this venture of love”