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HERSTIK, NAFTALI Naftali Herstik
Cantor Naftali Herstik, Chief Cantor
of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem, was born in Salgotarjan, Hungary, and emigrated with his family to Israel at the age of three. Descended from a long line of
cantors, he showed early talent as a boy chorister and cantorial soloist. He
first studied with his father, then with such other noted cantors as Leib
Glantz, Shlomo Ravitz, and Moshe Koussevitzky, and he completed his education
at the Royal College of Music in London, where he subsequently served for a
number of years as cantor of the Finchley Synagogue. Acclaimed for the
refinement and elegance he brings to cantorial art and to prayer, Cantor
Herstik has also sung in concert with the London Festival Orchestra, the London
Mozart Players, the Jerusalem and Prague symphony orchestras, the Israel
Philharmonic and Zurich Chamber orchestras, and many internationally noted
choirs. His two historical recordings with Israel's Rinat Choir, documenting
the synagogue musical traditions of the former German cities of Konigsberg (now
Kaliningrad, Russia) and Danzig (now Gda'nsk, Poland), were critically praised
for their artistry and authenticity. His recording Prayers from Jerusalem,
with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic) conducted by Elli Jaffe,
was described by the Jerusalem Post as displaying a "golden voice
[that] reaches directly to our heart," giving the feeling of "sitting
in a synagogue and being part of a communal prayer in which the cantor
transmits the feelings of the individual to God." In 1998 in London,
Cantor Herstik sang the lead cantorial solo in Vanished Voices, an
oratorio created and conducted by Neil Levin to mark the fiftieth anniversary
of Reichskristallnacht; and in 1991 he was the principal soloist at a
London concert commemorating Salomon Sulzer (the architect of modern cantorial
art), with Levin conducting the English Chamber Choir in the inaugural event of
the seven-city international Sulzer Congress, "A Voice for Our Time."
Herstik is also a dedicated teacher of hazzanut at Israel's principal cantorial school.
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