BEMA

The Beth El Musical Arts Committee (BEMA), under the leadership of Cantor Joseph Ness, helps conceive ways to educate and entertain the Beth El congregation as well as the surrounding community areas related to Jewish culture through music, chanting and prayer.

Beth El Musical Arts

BEMA administrates and seeks funding for several performances annually. Those performances are created and scheduled each year for different functions within the temple itself, in the Hartford community and in the New York metropolitan area. BEMA is also available to other Beth El Temple committees in an advisory capacity to those who seek to add a musical aspect to their individual functions.

Since 1993, no other synagogue has been as fortunate as Beth El Temple in it’s ability to fund, create and perform new musical works, commemorate Jewish celebrations, participate through music in prayer services, support and operate an award winning all volunteer choir and children’s choir as well as enlightenment through music education lectures.

BEMA dramatically affects the quality and quantity of Jewish culture available at Beth El and helps foster an atmosphere of Jewish learning and understanding. Utilizing musical performance and education as its tools, the committee is also responsible for creating a climate that makes a higher level of Jewish culture accessible to everyone.

Cantor Joseph Ness of Beth El Temple is BEMA's Composer/Conductor. Cantor Ness is a composer, arranger and conductor, whose music is performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Israel. He has composed, orchestrated and arranged over 450 pieces of music spanning both the liturgical and concert genres and created many orchestral programs with cantorial solos and choral pieces with narration such as The Voice of Jewish Russia, Vanished Voices, and The Wisdom of Chelm. In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel, Lyrical Israel, a CD, was produced.

Cantor Ness has been commissioned by major musical figures such as Lukas Foss and Fred Sherry and has composed and arranged for the leading hazzanim of our time. He has been commissioned by many orchestras and ensembles, including the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, Fort Lauderdale Symphony, Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, Manchester Orchestra (England), American Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Great Synagogue Choir and The Group for Contemporary Music. His music has been performed at the Conservative Movement Convention in Washington D.C. with the Washington Festival Orchestra.

Cantor Ness produces several major orchestral concerts annually featuring the Beth El Choir and Orchestra. Because of his inspiring programming, Beth El Temple was the recipient of the National Solomon Schechter Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts in 2003 and again in 2005. Cantor Ness is also the Composer in Residence for the New Haven Chorale 2006-7 Season and is an adjunct Instructor in Jewish Music at Hebrew College In Newton, Massachusetts. In 2004, Cantor Ness composed “Jacob’s Ladder” as part of a series of musical interpretations of biblical stories. “The Akedah” was performed in April 2005. The third composition in that series, “Sarah and Hagar” was premiered at the University of Hartford in April 2006.

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BEMA

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