Volunteer of the Month: Cantor Stephen Richards

 What has been the most enjoyable part of being a cantor? 

For me it’s been the creative aspect of it. I came into the Jewish music field as a composer, and one who had very little knowledge of Judaism or of the cantorate. And what I know I’ve picked up as I’ve gone along through school and because of different rabbis who have influenced me. 

Who were your influences? 

One was Rabbi Murray Salzman (z”l). I knew him in Indianapolis and then he went on to Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. I filled in there for a year. We had remained very good friends over the course of the years. He passed away last year. At that time I was doing work for the then UAHC, now URJ, living in Arizona. Murray asked if I’d like to fill in for a year. I was working on project Manginot. I had accumulated, edited and type-set all the music for that.

How did you get to edit Manginot?

I was on the Music Commission. Manginot was a project of that and Dan Freelander asked me to take it over. At that point I didn’t even own a computer. I worked with Judith Tischler at Transcontinental Music. I actually ran Transcon from 1977 to 1980 and I was also teaching at the SSM.

What were you teaching?

Reform workshop, Theory and Harmony, Composition. I loved it. If they’d only paid me! The Union, and Transcon were paying very little, and it was not enough to support my family so I went back to congregational work. When I left Transcon, I went to Phoenix to Temple Beth Israel, and I stayed for 11 years. They split off into another congregation and I had the opportunity to do Manginot so I left Beth Israel and stayed in Phoenix. After the interim year in Baltimore I took the position in Walnut Creek, California. It was a small congregation and it allowed me time for writing and creative things that I liked to do. 

Who was your other influence? 

Rabbi Chuck Herring – Charles. He was the one of the two rabbis at Temple Beth Israel. He was really into creative services and congregational participation. I really learned a lot about how to involve the congregation in worship and look for creative ways to do it. At one point Dick Botton commissioned me to work with him on a service called “Echad” which was an attempt to do a through-composed creative service with no English reading for a small instrumental ensemble. It was one hour and-a-half of music performed at Central Synagogue. It was one of the last things he did before he retired. 

You graduated from the SSM in 1969. Who or what led you that route?

I was actually working in theater Off-Broadway (in the pit) and doing private teaching, then I did some work in-between as a youth director at a temple in Yonkers. The rabbi there, Abe Klausner, took an interest in my creative work and paid me to write some music for the synagogue and whenever I had something performed in New York he would come. He encouraged me to study for the cantorate and I said, what’s that? I came from a classical, non-religious background. I went down to HUC in New York and showed them some of my stuff and they decided to admit me. I graduated with Murray Simon. I was friendly with Ted Aaronson, Eddie Fogel, Dave Unterman.

Who were your teachers?

The ones that had big influence were mainly Israel Alter and Lawrence Avery.

What impact did the SSM have on your composition? 

Oh, it had a tremendously different influence. I learned how to incorporate nusah into my writing. As I learned Hebrew it really influenced the direction of my writing. I didn’t do as much composing in those years as I did later on or had earlier between school and then after school, family and job; it took a lot of time away from the writing.

What advice do you have for cantors who may want to pursue composition today? 

Tough question. New serious music is not being encouraged in congregations. The tendency is towards total participation. I’m finding that most of the music I write that’s published with Transcon is music that they’re selling to school groups or churches, because choral music is not being done much in synagogues. I’m finding when I write for a synagogue commission it’s always with a singable melody that’s repetitious. I’m finding a way to get people to feel a part of the composition.

Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with youth as a cantor? 

My first congregation out of school was in Rochester and I was hired as a Cantor/Youth Director. At that time (that was 1969 through 1970) the camp music – Debbie Friedman, Jeff Klepper and Danny Freelander -- was just starting. I was writing some music for the kids to sing. And I went for a couple of weeks to camp with the kids and learned the kind of effect that music could have on them. And throughout the years, I’ve been involved with confirmation classes and in camp situations where I’ve created music with kids and I’ve always enjoyed that. 

 What do you look forward to most at ACC conventions? 

Seeing old friends and colleagues, obviously. Since I’m no longer functioning in a congregation, I’m not there to bring things back, but rather to see what’s going on and hear what the new music sounds like and contribute new music. I also go just to be with colleagues and reinforce my whole feeling of the strength of the ACC which has changed so drastically in the 40 some odd years that I’ve been a part of it. 

Tell us one thing about yourself that we might not know that you would want us to learn about you. 

I’ve been doing a lot of composing outside of synagogue music. There’s a chamber music company called Trevco that’s been putting out a lot of my stuff. Many of my colleagues know about The Ballad of Ruth, which is going to be performed at the Wise Synagogue here in Los Angeles on the Friday night before Shavuot, May 25, 2012. I’ve also just had a suite for Oboe and strings played by the Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay.