A life-long singer and professional performing songwriter, Judith-Kate Friedman is honored to serve Jewish communities as a cantorial soloist and composer of sacred songs and settings of liturgical texts.
This year, she is available to work with North American congregations and communities who need a soloist on relatively short notice.
Judith-Kate’s cantorial soloist work began in 2003 when Rabbi Sheldon Marder invited her to co-facilitate the Psalms, Songs and Stories project—co-writing sacred songs with elders, average age 88, at San Francisco’s Campus for Jewish Living—and then to become soloist for the campus’ Congregation L’Dor V’Dor where he served as rabbi and chaplain.
Her lineage as a cantorial soloist and Jewish musician includes studies with Rabbi S. Marder, Chazzan Richard Kaplan, Chazzan Linda Hirschhorn—with whom she performed and recorded as a member of a cappella ensemble Vocolot—and with her family whose carrying of Yiddish art songs and labor songs informed her, spiritually and secularly, and infused her with an understanding of the power of sound and song.
It is this love for the ruakh, the spiritual uplift and depth, which musical communion makes possible that calls Judith-Kate
to compose and to serve, congregationally.
Lyrics to
“Start Fresh”
Judith-Kate’s song
celebrating the Chaggim and the Days of Awe
are published in Mishkan Hanefesh (CCAR, 2015)
Sheet music and lyric video are available.
My work with Judith-Kate Friedman is one of the highlights of my forty years as a rabbi. I consider it a turning point in my work with Jewish elders.
—Rabbi Sheldon Marder, CA, US
Photo credits: Marlene Levenson (upper left), Sheldon Marder (lower), all other photos: Judith-Kate Friedman