Upon making their decisions to pursue a cantorial education, these students described leaving unsatisfying occupations. For them, being a cantor offered a more desirable quality of life, even at the temporary expense of financial viability:
I didn’t like my new [opera] colleagues. I didn’t like the way that they lived their lives. It wasn’t that they were bad people—they were great. And I had a great time. But their lives were so much as gypsies; and the woman who was singing the starring role in [my touring company of] La Traviata, she was married to another singer. They had no children. They couldn’t have children; not ’cause they physically couldn’t, [but] because their lives wouldn’t let them. And I didn’t want my life to look like theirs. I saw that and I said “This is not for me. I don’t want this.” And I also didn’t wanna just be “a Mom,” and stay at home. I wanted something that I loved to do that I was good at, and that really meant something to me. And I saw from that experience that opera was not it. And there was a lot of cattiness and a lot of cruelty between people; a lot of unprofessional behavior, as well as some great stuff. But, it wasn’t for me. (R. Lambert-Hayut, Feb. 10, 2000)
Like those in the second group, several students placed great significance on the comparative stability of cantorial jobs; and all hoped this occupational choice would be their last. Several indicated that studying for the cantorate would either cause or clear the way for major life changes and reorientations, including marriage, “settling down,” and “returning” to Judaism. Perhaps the most dramatic—and least pleasant—of these changes involved students who were in serious personal relationships with non-Jews. Though unwritten in the School’s literature, the School of Sacred Music (and all of Hebrew Union College) strongly discouraged students from dating or marrying non-Jews. Mentors thus advised potential applicants involved in exogamous relationships (all of whom were in this third group) not to apply until that situation resolved, since the admissions committee would inevitably reject them.
[W]hen I decided to go [to the School of Sacred Music, my partner] and I hadn’t been married yet.… So I called up, and made an appointment to talk to the Dean and I came in and he heard about my [partner]. And [the director] said … “Is [your partner] Jewish?” And I said “No.” And I told him we were getting married. And he said, “Well, you have to understand that you cannot apply; you cannot fill out an application form, unless [your partner] converts [to Judaism].” So I had to go home and tell this to [my partner.].… [A] lot of [my partner’s] extended family is Jewish, so [my partner] has attended many Jewish holidays, with me and with [my partner’s] family. Although [my partner] was brought up Christian. But [my partner] was not foreign to the religion. So, that was a very difficult process, that leaves a lot of resentment, which I absolutely understood.… (Interview)
This circumstance, while emotionally trying, emphasized the compound nature of the decision to attend cantorial school. Even before applying, students had to embrace lifestyle choices amenable to the institution’s ideology.
The concept of becoming a cantor through a graduate program, in contrast, never created internal conflict among those in this group (though some mentioned impatience with the additional years they had to spend in study). Of greater concern was which cantorial school to attend. While ideological and musical issues provided some sway, more influence seemed to come from the affiliations of the students’ cantorial mentors: nearly all the mentors of the students I interviewed in this group had received their training and/or taught at the School of Sacred Music, and all successfully directed students toward the School when they expressed interest in the cantorate.5
While the students comprising all three of these groups grew up in North America, others representing a small but significant international presence within the cohort—particularly from the Former Soviet Union and Australia—offered paths with important narrative variations.
Students recently emigrated from the Soviet Union had matriculated into cantorial school with some consistency (one every couple of years) since the late 1970s, often becoming symbols of American Jewry’s campaign for freeing Soviet Jewish dissidents at the time. By the 1990s, the age of Perestroika had created a somewhat different picture: young Russians began to enjoy greater opportunities to participate in Jewish cultural activities, and the state imposed fewer travel restrictions. Consequently, all the successful applicants to the School spent significant amounts of time in Israel before emigrating to the United States. Several applied to the School shortly after their arrival on American soil; and their decisions to apply appeared inspired by formal musical training in Russia, new freedoms for understanding their religious identities, and a desire to professionalize musicians’ skills within the Jewish world.6 The School of Sacred Music, which tended to place a higher priority on musicality than it did on Judaic knowledge and practice among its applicants (as I will describe later in this chapter), thus offered a space for realizing cantorial ambitions even as students addressed their own religious growth. Noted one student:
Actually, I was thinking about being a cantor in Russia. I taught in two Jewish schools: one every day [a day school] and one supplement[al]. And in [the] supplement[al school] … there [were] twelve girls.… And they had a very strong music background.… And so we had [an] ensemble—but when I left for Israel [on a grant program] and I was doing [Yiddish singing] tours over Russia and abroad.… it mixed up … you cannot direct child[ren] successfully. And so I thought if I could find a job where I could combine [Judaism with music] because I am enjoying working with kids.… There was an attempt to create a Reform congregation in St. Petersburg; but it [didn’t suit my taste].… Here [in the United States] … first I thought “Maybe Conservative [Judaism] will see it for me better.” But it happened that [a Reform cantor] in San Francisco played a big [mentoring] role both as a singer and as a cantor and then she helped me a lot in getting [me to apply to the School of Sacred Music]. And so here I am.…
I became more and more involved with Jewish culture and with Judaism and so it was, like, the next step. I always felt too secular among Orthodox: I had a lot of, and still have a lot of Orthodox friends because we took it very seriously in Rus sia [chuckles] and many people wanted to compensate all they missed [chuckles]. And I always felt too religious among secular people so, I ended up as Reform, I’d say. (L. Averbakh, Feb. 10, 2000)
The Australian applicants, meanwhile, underlined the School of Sacred Music’s status as a prime (if not the only) training institution for Progressive Judaism (an international movement closely related to North American Reform Judaism) more generally.7 Outside the United States, Progressive Jewish institutions tended to hold much less local influence than the more “normative” Orthodox or Traditional groups. Consequently, international cantorial applicants sometimes grew up in more traditional Jewish settings, and came to the movement after undergoing an ideological shift in young adulthood. Their resulting background and knowledge represented a form of Judaism parallel to, but not exactly, American Reform Jewish practices.
The students who decided to apply to cantorial school thus converged through several pathways, all requiring them to think about their religious and musical identities within particular forms of professional training and Jewish ideology. Once decided upon their paths, students faced their next task: gathering materials and preparing profiles that would prove their worthiness for commencing study.
The Application Process
Applying to the School of Sacred Music brought candidates through a months-long, multi-step evaluation process that assessed musical skill and “talent,” Judaic knowledge, and moral character. As self-appointed gatekeepers of the cantorial tradition, the School of Sacred Music’s faculty used these criteria to mediate between several cultural systems—Western academic convention, the “secular” musical world, Reform Jewish identity, and a self-propagated Jewish musical culture—in order to determine which applicants qualified for cantorial study.
The 1999 publicity pamphlet for the School of Sacred Music listed three admissions “prerequisites” for prospective students. “Musical Competence” included “a trained voice,” “sight reading,” and “keyboard