This concert features the lost sacred music of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Judaism’s Chasidic movement, and traditional music from his hometown of Mezbuz; recovered and orchestrated by local composer Daniel S. Gil.

 

Featuring Conductor Gilbert Trout, and a chamber orchestra which includes musicians from the Boston Pops and Boston Lyric Opera.

 

 

 

This program is supported by a Synagogue Program Fund grant from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Zvhil-Mezbuz Beis Medrash, and Congregation Etz Chaim of Sharon.

Dr. Lewis Glinert and Grand Rabbi Y. A. Korff will address this concert with words and stories to place this important musical event in context.

 

Grand Rabbi Y.A. Korff, the Current Muzbuz Rebbe, is a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov. He serves as a Dayan on Boston's Beis Din and Vaad Harabonim, and has been the City of Boston's Jewish Chaplain for the past twenty-five years.

 

Lewis Glinert is Professor of Hebraic Studies at Dartmouth College.  He lectures widely on the Baal Shem Tov and performs Chasidic tales. Since launching the Festival of Chasidic Life at Dartmouth in 1999, he has made the Chasidic tale a core element in the college’s Jewish Studies program. As founding director of the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive, the leading academic online source of Jewish music, he is also working to bring the music of Chasidic niggunim to scholars around the world.