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Interview · Zamir Choral Foundation · 2020Basya Schechter in conversation with Matthew Lazar
83 min
Interview

Basya Schechter in conversation with Matthew Lazar

A long conversation in which Schechter talks about growing up Hasidic in Borough Park, her travels, and how she came to set Jewish text to music, with songs along the way.

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Teacher

Meet Basya Schechter.

Basya Schechter

Basya Schechter grew up in the Hasidic community of Borough Park in Brooklyn and founded the band Pharaoh's Daughter in 1995, while she was a student at Barnard College. She sings and plays oud, guitar, saz and percussion, and the band's sound mixes Jewish song and klezmer with folk and Middle Eastern music. Her solo album Songs of Wonder sets the Yiddish poems of Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Kabbalachia, made with Shaul Magid, sets the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy to Appalachian old-time music. She serves as cantor and music director at the Romemu congregation in New York, and as cantor at the Fire Island Synagogue.

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Original source

This interview is attributed to Zamir Choral Foundation. Paths Are Many provides context and links back to the original publisher.

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Path

The wider context.

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Concealment & the hidden light

Kabbalah

The Jewish mystical tradition centred on hidden dimensions of scripture and the nature of the divine, often explored through symbolic systems such as the Tree of Life.

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