By Lois Goldrich
TENAFLY, NJ — As Shirah, the Community Chorus at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, prepares to celebrate its 18th year with a gala concert on June 10, founding director and conductor Matthew Lazar says he is proud of what the group represents.
“Shirah is a community,” said Lazar, known to his friends as Mati.
“It’s a group of people who care about each other, making music together, and expressing their Jewish identity together. Whatever differences there might be, when we make music together, we are one entity and one people.”
“The goal of Shirah — and of all choirs — is finding a way to promote and express Jewish identity through music,” said Lazar. “It’s a paradigm of community, the perfect balance between the individual and the group. It’s a perfect example of the saying, ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.’”
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