ABOUT
A soulful leader and collaborator at heart, Cantor Fair loves to work with rabbis and other congregational leaders, creating innovative worship services that blend the traditional Jewish songbook with new music by modern composers.
As an Artist in Residence, Cantor Fair travels to teach, lead worship, and offer Jewish music concerts, showcasing his training as an opera singer and musical theater actor. His concerts feature contemporary crowd-favorites, such as Elana Arian and Debbie Friedman, but his real gift is singing music from the “Golden Age of Cantors”– those gems from the age of chazzanut! These concerts also feature his love of singing spirituals and connecting them to Jewish liturgy.
As the son of a white Jewish mother and a black father, Cantor Fair specializes in blending Black spirituals with Jewish prayer in thoughtful and respectful ways. His love of performing spirituals was explored in his Masters in Sacred Music thesis entitled, Tsiporah’s Children: The Music and Lived Experience of Jewish Black Americans, which he wrote while a student at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion.
Cantor Fair is the Cantor Educator at Temple Emanuel in Grand Rapids, MI, where he lives with his partner Corey.
BOOKING
If you are interested in having me visit your congregation, here are options I offer as to how that would look:
Three-Day Artist-in-Residence Weekend:
· FRIDAY: I would arrive in the late morning on Friday and join with your clergy to lead an Erev Shabbat service, including a sermon-and-song.
· SATURDAY MORNING: I would also join your clergy to lead an extra musical Shabbat morning service. After the service, I would give a Lunch-and-Learn, sharing my research on my thesis: The Music and Lived Experiences on Jewish Black Americans.
· SATURDAY EVENING: I would perform in a 60–75-minute concert of Jewish music, spirituals, Broadway showtunes and operatic favorites.
· SUNDAY MORNING: I would work with your religious school director to arrange for me to go to religious school classrooms and teach. At the end of the school day, there would be a 30-minute school-wide assembly where all the children would perform.
Evening and Morning Shabbat plus Saturday Evening Concert
· FRIDAY: I would arrive in the late morning on Friday and join with your clergy to lead an Erev Shabbat service, including a sermon-and-song.
· SATURDAY MORNING: I would join your clergy to lead an extra musical Shabbat morning service. After the service, I would give a Lunch-and-Learn, sharing my research on my thesis: The Music and Lived Experiences on Jewish Black Americans.
· SATURDAY EVENING: I would perform in a 60–75-minute concert of Jewish music, spirituals, Broadway showtunes and operatic favorites.
Evening and Morning Shabbat
· FRIDAY: I would arrive in the late morning on Friday and join with your clergy to lead an Erev Shabbat service, including a sermon-and-song.
· SATURDAY MORNING: I would join your clergy to lead an extra musical Shabbat morning service. After the service, I offer two options: (A) Lunch-and-Learn, sharing my research on my thesis: The Music and Lived Experiences on Jewish Black Americans, or (B) A 45-minute afternoon lecture concert (generally, 4-5 songs with teaching preceding each piece.
One-night Only
I would perform in a 60–75-minute concert of Jewish music, spirituals, Broadway showtunes and operatic favorites.
TESTIMONIALS
“David wowed my congregants with his voice, his talent, his passion, and his charisma. He led us in song, inspired us during services, and taught us during Torah Study. My congregants and I cannot wait to bring David back again next year!”
— Rabbi Benjamin Dyme, Beth El The Beaches Synagogue, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
”The world is sustained by three things; Torah, worship and loving deeds.”