Joyce Rosenzweig, Music Director
Joyce was honored at our 24th Annual Benefit Concert, “Psalm Enchanted Evening” on June 2, 2019, at 130 West 30th Street, New York NY. We celebrated her 25 years of soulful, brilliant musical leadership at CBST.
Pianist/conductor Joyce Rosenzweig performs frequently in concerts throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Israel. A native of Houston, she studied piano performance at Oberlin Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, and Indiana University, choral conducting at Westminster Choir College, and art song and chamber music at the Banff Centre of the Arts (Canada), the Cleveland Orchestra’s Blossom Music Festival, Round Top Music Festival (Texas), and the Franz Schubert Institute (Vienna), where she was awarded first prize in lieder accompaniment. She has collaborated in recital with ensembles from the New York Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and appeared as guest soloist with the New Orleans Philharmonic and the Texas Festival Orchestra. She has performed in all of the major concert halls of New York, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Jewish Museum, the Center for Jewish History, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage. As a member of the Fiati Chamber Players, she was responsible for commissioning over a hundred new compositions, and premiered them in concerts throughout the US. She performed in recitals throughout North America under the sponsorship of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.
A leading figure in Jewish music, Joyce is a sought-after collaborative artist, conductor, master class presenter, lecturer, coach, arranger, and authority on Jewish art and synagogue music. She has concertized with most of the cantors of this generation. She has been featured at the International Jewish Music Festival (Amsterdam), the Jewish Cultural Festival (Berlin), the Ashkenaz Festival (Toronto), the Chicago and Charlotte Yiddish Institutes, Klezkamp, the North American Jewish Choral Festival, URJ Biennials, and at annual Cantorial conventions for both the Conservative and Reform movements. Her recent concert tours have taken her to Prague, Budapest, Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Berlin, Amsterdam, Montreal, Halifax, Aspen, San Diego, Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Miami, and New Orleans.
Ms. Rosenzweig is a dedicated educator of cantors and synagogue musicians, having served for more than three decades on the faculty of Hebrew Union College – Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in New York, where she holds the title of Faculty-Artist in Jewish Music and Performance. She has been an adjunct professor and Lippitz Mentor in the Sacred Arts at the Jewish Theological Seminary since 2004. She teaches courses in Yiddish, Israeli, and Sephardic song repertoire, modal harmony, and is the conductor of the HUC Chorus. She has served as Music Director of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan since 1994, where she has created one of the most dynamic and emulated Shabbat and High Holiday worship experiences today. Under her direction, the CBST Chorus sings at services, concerts, and commemorations, and represents the synagogue in larger community events and choral festivals. During the pandemic the chorus recorded six beautiful virtual choir videos.
Joyce can be heard as pianist on the following CD’s: A Leyter tsum Himl (A Ladder to Heaven) with Cantor Robert Abelson, Chalamti Chalom (I Dreamt a Dream) and Hegyon Libi with Cantor David Berger, Eybike Lider (Eternal Songs) with mezzo-soprano Caroline Chanin, B’chol L’vav’cha (With all Your Heart) with the CBST Chorus, and Dreaming in Yiddish with vocalist Adrienne Cooper z”l. Her newest CD, Refuge (a recording of art songs by Jewish immigrant composers) with Cantor David Berger), will be released in the fall of 2021 under the Arcantus label.