Temple Emanu-El to honor Cantor Brian Mayer

With a festive dinner and joyous concert on May 18, Temple Emanu-El in Providence is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cantor Brian Mayer’s spiritual, musical, pastoral and educational contributions to Temple Emanu-El and to the larger Jewish community. 

Cantor Mayer’s resume is diverse and rich. He conveys Jewish knowledge through his love of chanting, teaching, composing, conducting and performing Jewish music. For  the past quarter century, Cantor Mayer has led Shabbat and High Holy Day services, using well-loved cantorial melodies and teaching new tunes that have become familiar favorites. Cantor Mayer has incorporated beloved Yiddish standards and his own choral compositions into this eclectic mix. 

Cantor Mayer is a respected scholar of Hazzanut (Jewish cantorial music) who is known nationally for his innovative, artistic and participatory music programming. He is loved for his commitment to the Temple’s youth through his extraordinary Torah Tutor program, his Religious School teaching and the development of the Kol Kesem/HaZamir teen choir. The music program he has built at Temple Emanu-El is diverse and unique: in addition to HaZamir, he has established Shir Emanu-El and developed the Temple Emanu-El choir, two accomplished adult choirs, as well as the Shabbat Chai and Kol Klezmer bands. 

In 2009, Cantor Mayer was the artistic director of the award-winning “Shining Through Broken Glass: A Kristallnacht Concert,” a regional event which featured musicians and performers from the larger community and the actor and artist Leonard Nimoy as narrator. Cantor Mayer has also brought an exuberant spirit of musical collaboration to annual community interfaith observances, including the Martin Luther King Day community event.

Nationally, Cantor Mayer has conducted adult choirs at the annual North American Jewish Choral Festival; and HaZamir, the international Jewish high school choir, at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.

Cantor Mayer is associate professor of Jewish Music and dean of the School of Jewish Music at Hebrew College in Boston. He taught for 14 years at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York as an assistant professor of Hazzanut. Cantor Mayer was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where he later earned a Doctor of Sacred Music degree.

The community is invited to celebrate this milestone with Temple Emanu-El. The schedule for the evening includes hors d’oeuvres at 4:30 p.m., dinner at 5, and a concert at 7. A reception follows the concert.