In his talk “Rossi in Moravia: Cantors in Czech Lands (1500-1750),” Cantor Matt Austerklein will share new research and musical examples which illuminate a dynamic era in Jewish music history.

During the early modern period, Bohemia and Moravia were the sites of a dramatic transformation of Ashkenazic cantors into music professionals. Expanding beyond their traditional synagogue functions, cantors sang with instrumental accompaniment, organized into study groups, added choral singers to the synagogue, and experimented with Western musical notation. These changes contributed to the awakening of cantors as musical artists, and formed many of the norms of the cantorate still around today.

Cantor Matt Austerklein received his cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2011, and serves as the Cantor of Temple Beth Sholom in Sarasota, FL. He is also a PhD candidate in Jewish Studies at Halle-Wittenberg University, where he is writing his dissertation on Ashkenazic cantors in Early Modern Europe. Cantor Austerklein is the editor of three books and numerous articles on Jewish music, and serves on the faculty of the European Academy of Jewish Liturgy & L’École Rabbinique de Paris. He was recently awarded the Samuel Rosenbaum Award for Scholarship and Creativity, the Cantors Assembly's highest honor.

This event is free and open to the public. Suggested donation $15. Seats are limited, on first-come first-served basis. RSVP online through Eventbrite.

This event is organized by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews with support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York, Consulate General of the Slovak Republic in New York, and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.