Practising Performance: Psalm singing in the Judeo-Moroccan and Anglican traditions

Vanessa Paloma Elbaz and Graham Ross offer a fascinating and practical introduction to this central repertoire. You don’t have to be a specialist singer to attend but if you attend you will be required to sing! 

Singing psalms in community is both a musical and spiritual practice in religious traditions around the world. 

We will focus on the traditional Moroccan Jewish practice of troped psalms in Hebrew by learning the melodic and rhythmic patterns from Morocco and comparing them with versions in English settings from the Anglican tradition. 

Vanessa Paloma Elbaz has gathered and studied these psalms in Moroccan synagogues in Jerusalem, Los Angeles, Tangier, Casablanca and Paris. She is a researcher and performer of Moroccan Jewish traditions and performed among others at the World Festival for Sacred Music, Institut du Monde Arabe and Sephardi Music Festival.

Graham Ross is Fellow and Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge where he conducts the internationally-renowned Choir. He has also established an exceptional reputation as a sought-after conductor and composer of a very broad range of repertoire and his extensive discography has earned consistently high international praise, including a Diapason d’Or, Le Choix de France Musique, and a Gramophone Award nomination.