Alberto's Voice

In Chicago? See “Conviction” at Theater Wit.

Check out this intriguing one man show: Spanish Inquisition (I sang Kol Nidre and led a Q&A in the Sunday, February 13 performance).

 In Franco-ruled 1960’s Madrid, an Israeli scholar is detained for stealing a confidential Inquisition file. Contained within it is the true confession of Spanish priest Andrés González (1447—1486), whose faith is tested when he finds himself in love with a Jewish woman.

Written by Oren Neeman and directed by Kevin Hart, CONVICTION is based on the Yonatan Ben Nachum novel Confessions.  Starring Ami Dayan in a riveting performance and directed by Kevin Hart. The production team includes costume designer Kevin Brainerd, music by Jon Sousa and
Yoni Green and movement direction by Robert Davidson.

CONVICTION, February 3-20 at Theater Wit (1229 W. Belmont). Performances are every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are currently on sale at the Theater Wit box office by calling (773) 975-8150 or by visiting www.theaterwit.org/boxoffice. Discounted tickets are available to seniors, students, industry professionals and groups of 10 or more for $17.50. All other tickets are $27.50. For more information about CONVICTION, please visit www.convictiononstage.com/

Maya Productions, in collaboration with ShPIeL-Performing Identity, Larry Horn, and Steve Klein, proudly announceCONVICTION, February 3-20 at Theater Wit (1229 W. Belmont).

In the Chicago Area? Join Me at a Screening of 100 Voices at The Webster Place Theater

450 AMC theaters around the United States will have a one evening showing of this great documentary on September 21. 2010.

If you're in Chicago, I will be attending the screening at The Webster PIace Theater and hosting a Q & A session following the screening. The address of the Theater is 1471 West Webster Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614-3049. Hope to see you there!

If you live elsewhere, I urge you strongly to find a theater near you and make it a must see. You will experience the power of Jewish music and memory led by hazzanim whose lives are dedicated to revitalizing our glorious cultural history with the sounds of modernity linked to the modes and echoes of an ancient people.

View a list of participating theaters, nationwide

View the trailer

Purchase tickets online for a theater near you

100 Voices: A Journey Home

  

Strange title for a documentary about cantors returning to Poland, the land of 1,000 years of Ashkenazic history and Torah greatness in which is featured a hazzan (cantor) born and of the Sephardic world (Greece and Turkey) and whose only personal contact with Poland was that his father survived the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

The Cantors Assembly, the largest amalgam of cantors in the world of which I am an officer, held our annual international convention in Poland and Israel last summer. Under the aegis of MOD 3, a film production company headed by the son of one of our past presidents, every moment of the trip was filmed by a crew using 7 high definition cameras. This amazing effort has resulted in the documentary, 100 Voices: a journey home.

Whether it be our first night at the Noszik Synagogue in Warsaw in which we were lectured on the history of Polish Jewry (approximately 1 in 3 people in Warsaw were Jewish before the WWII) followed by an evening service chanted by the sons of the last cantor of that synagogue before the holocaust that led to celebratory dancing around the pews…or the magnificent cantorial concert accompanied by the Warsaw Symphony…or the most poignant visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in which the 100 cantors donned “tallit and tefillin” and held a moving “shaharit” service in front of the selection booth of the deathcamp, their families and many members of our congregations joining us in what is truly indescribable until you see it in the film; this once in a lifetime experience had to be filmed for posterity and was.

450 AMC theaters around the United States will have a one evening showing of this documentary on September 21. 2010. I urge you strongly to find a theater near you and make it a must see. You will experience the power of Jewish music and memory led by hazzanim whose lives are dedicated to revitalizing our glorious cultural history with the sounds of modernity linked to the modes and echoes of an ancient people.

View a list of participating theaters, nationwide

View the trailer

Purchase tickets online for a theater near you

I am working on leading as many as want to join me in seeing the film in Chicago and then hosting a Q and A following the screening. See you there!