7 November 2010, 12 to 4 p.m.
»Tehilim & Psalms«
4th Sound Workshop

Jewish-Ashkenazi and Christian-Gregorian Tradition. With Chasan Jalda Rebling (Berlin), Maria Jonas & Ars Choralis Coeln. On the first Sunday in November each year, the Sound Workshop takes place at Kolumba. For the year 2010 I have invited the Chazanit (the female Jewish cantor) Jalda Rebling to come and retrace together with us the lost melodies of Jewish liturgy. In Jewish tradition a distinction has never been made between “sacred” and “profane” music, which means that everyone was familiar with the notation signs and melodies that were needed for singing the psalms. But this knowledge was passed down from mouth to ear, wholly in keeping with medieval tradition. This is why we only find the occasional notation of Jewish music prior to the 16th century. The melodies for the psalms (Tehilim), sayings of the fathers (Mishli), and the Book of Job, have, however, been lost. At present, much research is being done on an international scale to reconstruct this lost music – so far with no real success. But to date, there has not yet been a musical dialogue with other religions and cultures, for example, with Christianity and Gregorian Chants, which takes recourse to the common modal origins. Here is where we would like to embark on our journey of discovery. We have chosen the following psalms, which we will be singing both in Hebrew and in Latin/Gregorian: Psalm 92, Psalm 93, Psalm 95, Psalm 96, Psalm 103, Psalm 114, Psalm 145, and Psalm 150. Might we all, by singing together the Psalms, come a little closer to our religious neighbors? (Maria Jonas)

Chazan Jalda Rebling teaches in the tradition of the Maggidim, itinerant Jewish teachers, who spread Jewish knowledge over the world with songs, legends, and stories. For over 30 years, Jalda Rebling has been known as an internationally renowned and worldly-wise authority on Jewish music. In January 2007, Jalda Rebling was ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Schalomi, Rabbi Marcia Prager and Chazan Jack Kessler. Since then she has been conducting workshops in Jewish communities and chavurot (friendship groups) in Berlin, Erfurt, Hanover, Tübingen, and Göttingen. She has educated young Jewish social workers at the Erfurt University of Applied Sciences and taught in Amsterdam, Oslo, Trondheim, Stockholm and Lund. In addition, she has taught at the Hebrew Union College in New York, at Elat Chayyim Upstate New York and at the University of Colorado. Together with Aleph Rabbinical Student Lynn Feinberg, she was the first Jewish cantor to hold a Sabbath service in a Norwegian synagogue and read the Torah publicly. The occasion was an international Scandinavian WIZO- Conference in August of 2007. Together with Lynn Feinberg, Cantor Jalda Rebling has been directing a Women’s Shabaton in Oslo since 2006. She was one of the organizers of the Learning Minyans at the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue in Berlin, led the High Holidays in Berlin at the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue, in the Egalitarian Minyan in Frankfurt a.M., and at the JKC in Lund, and is a co-founder of Ohel Hachidusch in Berlin, the first Jewish Renewal Community in Germany, which is ALEPH-affiliated. Jalda Rebling has been invited to teach as lecturer at the Hans-Seidel Foundation /Munich and other non-Jewish organizations. She gives lectures in inter-confessional contexts, holds workshops, and takes an active part in inter-confessional discussions. (www.jalda-rebling.com)

Art museum of the
Archdiocese of Cologne