Concert programmes, guest cantorial engagements, lectures and masterclasses, and two full productions that have already been mounted in more than one city.
Everywhere Cantor Zelermyer appears, he proudly flies the colours of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, Montréal and Canada.
Almost everything described on this site was made at and for Congregation Shaar Hashomayim. The concerts and recordings are presented under SH’MA — Shaar Hashomayim Music & Arts.
The work
Concert Artist
Concert programmes
Cantorial, opera, Broadway, Israeli and popular song — assembled to an occasion. Recent evenings have run from golden-age chazzanut to Leonard Cohen.
Orchestral solo work
Oratorio and concert repertoire. Has sung with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre classique de Montréal, the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and others.
New work
Three world premieres sung, including a piece written for his voice at the request of a festival. Available for first performances.
With friends
He appears often with colleagues and old friends in evenings for two or three cantors, or more — a form with its own repertoire, and rather more fun than one voice alone.
From left: Cantors Berson, Zelermyer and Schwartz — an evening for three voices, and better company than one.
Cantor
Guest cantor
Shabbat services and congregational occasions. Alone, or with the Shaar Hashomayim Choir as a travelling ensemble.
Weddings
With instruments and/or choir. Available to officiate or to sing, wherever the occasion is being held.
Lectures & masterclasses
On cantorial repertoire, the choral synagogue tradition, and the relationship between liturgical and operatic singing. Recently at Queen’s, Harvard Divinity School, Rochester, UCLA and McGill — where he has taught, and what he teaches.
Cantorial coaching
Individual work on nusach, repertoire and the craft of leading a service — from someone who has spent more than twenty-five years doing just that.
He returns to Palm Beach Synagogue as guest cantor each year. This edition, in March 2022, marked twenty-five years of Birthright Israel, with the charity’s co-founder Charles Bronfman as scholar-in-residence.
Ready to present
Two productions that travel
Both have been staged in more than one city. Both can be brought to another.
Available to tour
The Richard Tucker programme
Multimedia concert · Montreal 2010 · Chicago 2022
Richard Tucker was the Jewish boy from Brooklyn who became the Metropolitan Opera's greatest star for three decades and went on singing the High Holy Days as a cantor throughout. The programme was built from months of research and a meeting with Tucker's son Barry, and moves between operatic, cantorial, liturgical, Israeli, Broadway and popular repertoire, cut with archival footage of Tucker on The Voice of Firestone, The Bell Telephone Hour and The Ed Sullivan Show.
In December 2022 it formed the basis of Richard Tucker's Legacy: A Chicago Celebration at Anshe Emet Synagogue — the 20th Annual Dr. Arnold H. Kaplan Concert — with soprano Angel Blue, tenor Matthew Polenzani, and Barry Tucker in the room.
Chicago, December 2022. From left: Elizabeth Berke, Gideon Zelermyer, Rachel Brook, Matthew Polenzani, Angel Blue; Chris Reynolds at the piano.
Montreal, 2010Chicago, 2022
SCALES TO THE ROOM Cantor, guest singers, piano or ensemble, with multimedia.PREVIOUSLY WITH
Joseph Kaiser · tenor
Stephen Glass · direction
Michael McMahon · piano
Angel Blue · soprano
Matthew Polenzani · tenor
Available to tour
Sacred Echoes
Cantata · Los Angeles 2014 · Montreal 2015
A Kristallnacht commemoration for two cantors, narrator, orchestra and children's choir, performed against virtual architectural reconstructions of the synagogues destroyed on the night of 9 November 1938 — fifteen German cities, among them Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich and Nuremberg.
The score sets symphonic arrangements of the golden age of German cantorial music: Lewandowski, Sulzer, Birnbaum. It premiered at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, and Zelermyer brought it to Montreal.
Los Angeles, 2014Montreal, 2015
FORCES
Two cantors
Narrator
Chamber orchestra
Children's choir
ARRANGEMENTS
James M. Stephenson
VISUALS Synagogues in Germany: A Virtual Reconstruction
Darmstadt University of Technology
Who he has worked with
Previously
Orchestras
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra
Montreal Chamber Music Festival
Musicians of the Toronto Symphony
Orchestre classique de Montréal
Orchestre Métropolitain
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Conductors
Tomer Adaddi
Roï Azoulay
Vincent de Kort
Stephen Glass
Simon Leclerc
Matthias Maute
Kent Nagano
Singers & soloists
Sharon Azrieli
Angel Blue
Russell Braun
Layla Claire
Leah Edwards
Ryan Speedo Green
Joseph Kaiser
Michael McMahon · piano
Matthew Polenzani
Lauren Segal
Lara St. John · violin
Composers
Meir Finkelstein
Raymond Goldstein
Jaap Nico Hamburger
Larry Hochman
Joseph Ness
Geoffrey Shisler
James M. Stephenson
Venues
Bell Centre, Montreal
Fenway Park, Boston
Isabel Bader Centre, Kingston
Maison symphonique, Montreal
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Salle Bourgie, Montreal
St John's Smith Square, London
Toronto Centre for the Arts
United Nations General Assembly
Wallis Annenberg Center, Los Angeles
Institutions
Art Gallery of Ontario
Harvard Divinity School
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Jewish Museum, New York
McGill University
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Queen's University
UCLA
University of Rochester
Cantors
Isidoro Abramowicz
Shai Abramson
Lori Akers
Roz Barak
Chaim David Berson
Rachel Brook
Simon Cohen
Shim Craimer
Marcus Feldman
Meir Finkelstein
Dudu Fisher
Mo Glazman
Yitzchak Meir Helfgot
Netanel Herstik
Thom King
Avraham Kirshenbaum
Yoel Kohn
Yanky Lemmer
Joseph Malovany
Eric Moses
Yaakov Motzen
Alisa Pomerantz-Boro
David Propis
Rachel Goldman Ruiz
Nisim Saal
Azi Schwartz
The Shul Sisters
Daniel Singer
Udi Spielman
Alex Stein
Tzvi Weiss
For programmes, press and publicity
Photographs & biography
All photographs by Ryan Blau. Free to use with that credit — high-resolution files below.
