Brownstein: Shaar Hashomayim synagogue celebrating one centesimal anniversary in Westmount with blowout live performance

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In marking the ultimate celebration of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim’s 100^th 12 months in Westmount, the synagogue’s roof may properly be raised — metaphorically talking, after all — with a blowout live performance Thursday that includes assist from a few of its pals: Grammy Award-winning cantor Gideon Zelermyer and the synagogue choir, acclaimed opera soloist Leah Edwards, and Tony and Emmy award-winning composer Larry Hochman. 

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This multimedia occasion, The Writings on the Partitions, is impressed by the 9 biblical verses on the synagogue’s important sanctuary partitions. The live performance, produced and carried out by Stephen Glass, will showcase a 16-piece orchestra in addition to extra performances from cantors Azi Schwartz and Chaim David Berson and supply high-def visible results on stated partitions. Internet hosting the present will probably be CTV Montreal anchor Mutsumi Takahashi.  

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Zelermyer, together with Leonard Cohen, who died in 2016, and the Shaar choir, received the 2017 Grammy Award for — go determine — the Greatest Rock Efficiency for his or her collaboration on You Need It Darker, the primary monitor on Cohen’s 14^th and ultimate album of the identical identify. They beat out extra conventional rockers just like the late Chris Cornell, the Foo Fighters, Kaleo and Nothing Extra.  

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Amongst her huge credit, soprano Edwards has achieved Broadway and Carnegie Corridor, has carried out with the New York Philharmonic and has appeared in such stage smashes as Carousel, Les Misérables, Oklahoma and Into the Woods. 

Hochman nabbed the Tony and Drama Desk awards for his co-orchestrations on The E-book of Mormon as properly Emmy Awards for his achievements in composition and track for The Marvel Pets! 

“We will probably be presenting music in so many various types, from conventional Jewish music to Broadway to Leonard Bernstein to all the things in between, even some pop hits that can deliver a welcome smile and a shock to individuals from what they may often count on in a synagogue,” says Zelermyer, whose towering tenor vocals cowl nearly all of the musical gamut, from cantorials to the classics to extra up to date tunes, together with a killer rendering of Roy Orbison’s Crying.  

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Zelermyer factors out that Cohen had a robust reference to the synagogue. He’s buried within the Shaar cemetery in his household’s plot. His grandfather Lyon Cohen and great-grandfather Lazarus Cohen had been previous presidents.  

Zelermyer additionally notes that the synagogue was really based downtown in 1846, below the fairly oddly titled English, German, Polish Congregation. In 1917, its identify was modified to Shaar Hashomayim, and it later moved to its current Westmount web site 100 years in the past.  

“The place has a historical past of nice performances going again to quite a few live shows by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra amongst different occasions. The final large live performance we did was three years in the past for Leonard Bernstein’s centennial 12 months, that includes the late Boris Brott conducting, however that is by far essentially the most formidable manufacturing we’ve ever undertaken,” says Zelermyer within the synagogue’s ornate important sanctuary. “It’s the primary live performance we’ve achieved for the reason that pandemic and we’re prepared to interrupt unfastened. We’re coming again in a giant, large means.” 

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The Writings on the Wall could appear to be a curious title alternative as a result of it usually conjures up extra a way of foreboding than pleasure. 

“On this case, we view these writings as one thing to information us,” he says, whereas pointing to the message above us, which interprets to ‘know earlier than whom you stand.’  

“That’s an admonition that has two sides to it: to speak about high-minded issues and conduct yourselves appropriately. However I look upon it as a mission assertion for me because the clergy who stands earlier than the congregation and is meant to be the conduit for his or her aspirations. And that’s not a simple duty.” 

Then there’s the verse ‘love your neighbour as your self.’  

“Many name that the golden rule, however not all the time simple,” he says. “Particularly, as a result of typically your neighbour, as we keep in mind in 2021, exhibits up and attracts swastikas in your entrance doorways.” 

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One in every of Zelermyer’s favorite wall writings pertains to constructing a sanctuary the place all nations can discover consolation. 

“That is one thing we’re very pleased with when it comes to our interfaith work within the metropolis,” he says. “For me, it was the long-standing relationship I had with the late Father John Walsh and the way in which he and I attempted to indicate the frequent brotherhood between us and a way of mission we share. It’s one thing our rabbi, Adam Scheier, has achieved along with his shut connection to the Imam in Quebec Metropolis after the shootings there.” 

Zelermyer, initially from Rhode Island, moved to Montreal 22 years in the past and has been with the congregation for 19 years: “My mom is an opera lover. My father is a rabbi. Cross them, and also you get a cantor. 

“I grew to become a twin citizen six years in the past, and one in all my biggest honours is to have the ability to sing on the Bell Centre and do the nationwide anthems for the Canadiens’ video games, particularly when it includes each my house and my place of birth.” 

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He has sturdy sports activities allegiances to the Boston space. He loves the baseball Pink Sox — for whom he has additionally sung the nationwide anthem — and soccer Patriots, however positively not the Bruins, even earlier than turning into a diehard Habs fan. 

Zelermyer has clearly handed on his allegiances to his youngsters. His son Max, whereas studying about Passover at nursery college, approached him to say: “Pharaoh was a really dangerous man — just like the Yankees.” 

As for Zelermyer’s favorite group?  

“Genesis! Biblical music, no?” 

Little doubt. 

The Writings on the Partitions: Thursday at 8 p.m. on the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, 425 Metcalfe Ave. Tickets: showpass.com/wow 

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