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Rebecca Levant - News & Reviews

Jewish Free Press

December 17, 2002

Calgarian's CD captures light and dark of Jewish music

By Maxine Fischbein

Jewish music lovers will be thrilled to hear that Calgary soprano Rebecca Levant has come out with her debut CD, just in time for Chanukah. The collection of Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino songs contained in Ani Ma'amin is a true gift to the Jewish soul delivered by way of the Jewish ear.
A long-time member of the Jewish community in Calgary, Levant - who was born in Edmonton and raised in Winnipeg and Regina - has had an extensive history in the performing arts. She began in theatre, winning her first role at the age of five.
In fact, one of the songs on Levant's CD, the lullaby Shir Eres, first entered her consciousness when it was sung to her during her theatrical debut. Later, she sang the same song to her own daughter.
While the CD provides a tour of Jewish history, Levant says the music she selected was very much rooted in her own personal history as well. This first becomes evident as one glances at the picture gracing the cover - a photograph of Levant some 50 years ago, at the age of five, together with her late grandfather.
"It was a joy growing up in Winnipeg," recalls Levant, "with very loving grand- parents," not to mention the ferment of Jewish culture in which that Jewish community was steeped.
Levant graduated from the first bilingual (Hebrew-English) class of Winnipeg's Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate and was, she says, "blessed with very spiritual teachers as a youngster."
These creative teachers helped her to find Jewish meaning in her life and, ultimately, to express that meaning to others through acting, dance and song, Levant says.
From her early days in Cantor Brownstone's choir, where she learned how to daven and was first singled out for solo work, to her production of Ani Ma'amin, Rebecca Levant says the journey has brought her full circle, back "to something that meant a great deal to me."
"My father loved Jewish music," recalls Levant, who has dedicated the CD to his memory.
"That's the roots," reflects Levant.
Pausing to discuss individual tracks of Ani Ma'amin as she speaks to the JFP, Levant's enthusiasm for the musical project - of which she was also executive producer - is positively contagious.
Commenting on Los Bibilicos, a Ladino song mourning lost love, Levant conjectures that her own roots are Sephardic.
"I like to think I am," says Levant, who is clearly inspired by music and lyrics that are haunting in the bittersweet way that is so characteristic of Jewish music, be it Ashkenazi or Sephardi.
In another song, Levant pays tribute to her mother - who also lives in Calgary - through her soulful rendition of the time-honoured favourite Mamale.
Though she has enjoyed a long career in the performing arts, first as an actress and then as a dancer, it is only recently that Levant discovered the power of her voice. In 1998, she was invited to sing at the community's Holocaust Remem-brance ceremonies. It was then that Levant began to realize how fortunate she was to use her gift of voice "to be a conduit for other people's spiritual yearnings Š to pull people deeper into themselves."
Her next musical stop was at Temple B'nai Tikvah (Levant is a member of both the Temple and Beth Tzedec) where former Rabbi Jordan Goldson welcomed her as a cantorial soloist. Now she has a recurring contract as a High Holiday cantorial soloist at Temple Beth Sholem, a Reform congregation in North Carolina.
Calgarians enjoy her performances as a cantorial soloist at weddings, b'nai mitzvahs and funerals, as well as at Temple B'nai Tikvah's healing services which Levant helps to lead three or four times a year.
Levant has even considered studying to become a full-fledged cantor but, for now anyway, she says, "the jury is out" on that plan.
Another outlet for Levant's considerable talents is in an interfaith milieu.
"My passion is interfaith work," says Levant, who serves on the board of directors of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews and has recently performed at a national conference of United Church ministers in Vancouver.
"My mission is to bring our music to interfaith communities, and particularly the Christian community, at a time when there is such an interest in it," Levant says, adding, "I have been encouraged by clergy of both faiths, which is really nice."
Now that Ani Ma'amin is about to be released (watch for it at the Calgary Jewish Centre's upcoming Jewish Book Fair, November 24 - December 1), Levant is looking forward to promoting her CD.
"My plan, really, is to tour in Western Canada," while, at the same time, pursuing as many singing opportunities as possible within Calgary, Levant says. Also a talented jazz and pop singer, Levant is available for gigs.
That should make life busy, indeed, for a woman who already has a "day job;" Levant works as a consultant in organizational and community development and is currently involved in a project for the Calgary Homeless Foundation.
In her "spare time," Levant is a keen student of Yoga philosophy, a pursuit she says "pushes and pulls me into Judaic spirituality."
"It forces me to learn about my Judaic spirituality," adds Levant, who has also studied Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), thus "honouring my roots."
Currently, Levant is putting much of her considerable energy into honouring those roots through Jewish song.
"My prayer, morning and night," says Levant, "is to do God's will. I know my purpose is linked with Cantorial singing."
It is a pursuit Levant says helps her - and hopefully others, as well - "to live more in joy than in fear."
To be sure, the songs on the CD don't always purvey joy - though some do.
Some are old-world, others liturgical. Some evoke the formation of modern Israel and others emerge from the ashes of the Holocaust.
"This CD tells my history and also reflects the history and life cycle of our people - and the light and dark of our lives, all of our lives," says Levant.
One of her numbers, Vi Azoy Kon Ich Lustig Zayn (How Can I Be Joyful?) captures some of the shadow territory in relating the mournful story of a woman who has been forced into a match with someone who is not her true beshert or soul-mate.
Levant found the piece in an old and out-of-print Jewish songbook she came across in North Carolina.
"I couldn't get through it at first," recalls Levant. It reminds her of a friend's story about her mother-in-law who was "literally strapped to the wagon" and dragged into a marriage arranged by her parents.
More dark and painful shadows are evoked by the CD's title track, Ani Ma'amin.
"Many people went to the gas chambers singing this," Levant says. Still, the song is an uplifting one and Levant's rendition movingly speaks to the indomitable Jewish spirit, unbreakable even in the face of murderous evil.
Three of Levant's favourite songs include Lakol Z'man (To Everything there is a Season, from Ecclesiastes); Adon Olam; and Yeh'yu Leratzon. The music for each of the songs - the latter two are actually prayers - was composed by Toronto composer Ben Steinberg.
Every selection for Ani Ma'amin was the result of very conscious choices, says Levant, adding, "I want to sing what I like, what I enjoy."

This article is reprinted, with permission, from the Jewish Free Press in Calgary.

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