Cantor Jen Benrey of Kol Ami Synagogue has started a teen band, the “Shul of Rock,” for students in grades 7-12, and a junior youth choir, “Sabra Singers,” for students in grades 2-6. Both are open to Jewish kids from across Southern Arizona.
The band and choir are the core of the Shirei Simcha Project. Meaning “Songs of Joy” in Hebrew, Shirei Simcha aims to bring Jewish youth together through the shared language of music. The project is made possible through a grant from Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona.
It is a program Benrey wished for when she was growing up.
“I was a kid who really loved music, and there were just not a lot of avenues for me to engage. When I was a teenager, I wanted to start a teen choir, and my cantor told me no. And I just know that it pushed me away from feeling connected Jewishly,” she says – although not for long.
Benrey studied choral music education at Florida State University and earned a Master’s of Sacred Music and Cantorial Ordination with a Concentration in Jewish Education from the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. She has led youth choirs at congregations in Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey for more than 10 years, and also started a teen band at Temple Har Shalom in Warren, New Jersey, her last post before coming to Tucson.
Music and voice, she says, “connect you to your spirit in ways that are different than sports or even bar mitzvah.”
“I wanted to reach kids who love to sing, who love to play instruments, and create not just an opportunity for them Jewishly, but also socially, to connect with their Jewish peers,” she says.
To that end, band rehearsals, which take place twice a month on Thursday afternoons, are followed by dinner, and choir rehearsals on Sundays after religious school include lunch.
“It was really important to me that they have social time, for them to trust each other as humans and not just as musicians,” Benrey says.
Piano player Chris Tackett, who plays at most Kol Ami services, helps Benrey lead the band.
“He’s fabulous,” Benrey says, explaining he has a background in jazz and a talent for composing, arranging, and conducting.
The “Shul of Rock” name is inspired by the popular 2003 Jack Black movie “School of Rock.” The band started with 10 members, many of whom play multiple instruments. They include Atticus Adams – guitar, piano, trumpet, viola, accordion; Jacob Colman – percussion and trumpet; Liora Dunn – vocals (soprano); Miles Hansen – piano and vocals (bass), Ben Levin – tenor saxophone; Ivan Moravec – clarinet, tenor saxophone, and vocals (tenor); Evan Pozez – electric bass, string bass, piano, trumpet, drums, guitar; Arielle Rabenou – oboe; Josh Rabenou – oboe; and Ben Rose – alto saxophone. Eight of the ten participants are from Kol Ami families.
Charlie Grandner, who plays trumpet, became the 11th band member after his March 7 bar mitzvah at Kol Ami.
The band plays mostly Jewish liturgical rock music, which combines traditional Hebrew prayers, piyyut (poems), and spiritual themes with rock, pop, and hip-hop instrumentation. Performers such as Matisyahu and Rick Recht have popularized this genre.
“There’s an entire radio station devoted to Jewish rock,” Benrey says, adding that the band is also learning klezmer and Sephardic music, or music from Spain, Portugal, and the Middle East.
Dan Nichols, founder of the Jewish rock band Eighteen, was Kol Ami’s scholar-in-residence last month. The Shul of Rock worked with him and performed a song at his community concert.
The choir has only a handful of kids thus far, but Benrey is hopeful it will grow as word spreads.
Although improving music skills is a goal for band and choir, “I think the most important thing for me is that they bond as a group, that they have fun, and that they connect,” Benrey says.
Having time to socialize during rehearsals is important, the cantor says, “for them to trust each other as humans and not just as musicians. And at the end of the day, it is still prayer, not just performance. So giving yourself grace is something that is really important for me to teach. If you make a mistake, you keep going. I make mistakes all the time, and you just keep going, and it’s okay. So I think as a group, it’s low pressure in that regard, and also at the same time striving for musical excellence. It’s a balance.”
Both groups will perform every other month at Kol Ami services or other community events.
Meg Knight, who helped write the grant for the Shirei Simcha project and also has a son, Ivan Moravec, in the band, says they hope to perform at Handmaker and other senior living residences such as the Gerd & Inge Strauss Manor on Pantano.
The band is “a way for her music-loving son “to stay involved in synagogue life after his bar mitzvah, by contributing,” she says.
Ivan, a seventh grader at the Gregory School, has been playing clarinet with the Shul of Rock. In fact, Knight says, “he’s playing the clarinet that my parents gifted me for my high school graduation. Like him, I started playing the clarinet in fifth grade. It’s neat for me to see him finding joy in something I also really enjoyed when I was young.”
It has been fun, Ivan says, especially working with Dan Nichols.
“He’s really good, and he’s kind of funny,” he says.
Several of the band members are friends from the Gregory School and elsewhere.
Ivan, who also plays with his school band and jazz band, likes the prospect of playing in front of people who haven’t heard him play before.
He’s also made some new friends at Shul of Rock rehearsals.
“We all have something to relate to, which is that we all play music and we’re all Jewish, so that’s nice,” he says.
“And Cantor Benrey is great,” he says. “She does a good job.”
