POWAY – What began as the piano noodlings of a high school junior has evolved into a large-scale Jewish music jam session.
DAN TREVAN / Union-Tribune
Jason Chauvin of the M'Dor L'Dor choir practiced for a performance. About 150 performers will be part of the JUMP Festival at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts.
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Enrico Lopez-Yanez intended to write a simple pop-rock song. He later asked his sister to play the piano arrangement while he filled in on drums.
“We just kept adding more and more to it,” said Enrico, 17, who attends Poway High School.
Eventually, Enrico recruited his mother, Ruth, to compose lyrics and a melody. Before long, the rocking “Shiru L'Adonai,” or “Come Sing A New Song To God,” was born.
Enrico and his mother will be joined by close to 150 musicians for the debut of the piece at 8 p.m. June 10 at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. The Lopez-Yanez family composition opens the JUMP Festival, which stands for Jews United in Music Performance. The event brings together the talents of musicians from five local temples and incorporates traditional liturgical pieces as well as toe-tapping klezmer and barbershop-style arrangements of Jewish standards.
What: JUMP Festival
When: 8 p.m. June 10
Where: Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road, Poway
Cost: $10, children $5, patron seating $18
Information: Ner Tamid Synagogue, (858) 513-8330.
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“I think it's going to be kind of hectic at first,” said Enrico, who plays trumpet in the San Diego Youth Symphony. “Hopefully, it'll all come together nicely. We have high hopes for this song because we put so much effort and time into it.”
Enrico and his mother also will perform with “Klezmattack,” one of several groups in the festival that play klezmer, the traditional instrumental music of Eastern European Jews that is frequently heard at weddings and at bar and bat mitzvahs.
“Klezmer has a lot of heart and feeling in it,” Ruth Lopez-Yanez said. “It's really joyous music.”
Lopez-Yanez created the festival with guidance from Rabbi Arnold Kopikis of Ner Tamid Synagogue in Poway. She envisions the festival as an annual event that will build bridges between a geographically divided community of worshippers.
Cantor Lori Wilinsky Frank of Temple Adat Shalom in Poway will conduct for two groups from her synagogue: the Simchat Shabbat Band and the junior choir.
“It's kind of self-affirming,” Frank said of the festival. “We worship at the same time and we're so spread out in North County that we never get to show each other our talents. It's a nice way to unite and experience the joy of Jewish music together.”
Adat Shalom's 12-member barbershop ensemble, the MenschTones will lend their mellifluous harmonizing to two numbers: “And the Youth Shall See Visions,” composed by Debbie Friedman, and “Sunrise, Sunset” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”
MenschTones leader David Garstang has been singing in barbershop groups since he was a boy.
“Basically, (we sing) anything we can find barbershop arrangements of,” Garstang said. “The barbershop competitive rules don't allow religious type numbers, but barbershoppers in general tend to be religious people, so there's a lot of songs of various religious backgrounds that are sung in barbershop style.”
Cantor Mauricio Bogomolny of Ohr Shalom Synagogue in San Diego will sing “V'hu Rachum,” a liturgical piece by Yossele Rosenblatt.
“It's like an aria,” Bogomolny said. “Vocally, it's very challenging (and) the words are very powerful. People who understand Hebrew are going to be really touched.”
Lopez-Yanez hopes people outside the Jewish faith will attend the performance, and that it fosters greater understanding and appreciation of Judaic music and culture.
At the end of the show, the entire lineup of performers will again take the stage, this time, to sing “Hine Ma Tov,” a traditional number sung at campfires and other gatherings. David Amos of the San Diego-based Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra will conduct.
“The words exemplify togetherness and friendship,” Amos said. “It's just a happy song about (how) it's good to be with friends.”
For more information or tickets, call Ner Tamid Synagogue at (858) 513-8330.
