Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia, performs in Paris. (Courtesy of Peter Boyer/Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia)
Stephen Silver
Peter Boyer became the new president of Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia, on July 1. The following day, he and the rest of the group took off for Paris to perform at the 10th European Jewish Choral Festival.
In doing so, they became the first choir from the United States to take part in the event.
The trip, which lasted from July 2 through 7, included six concerts throughout Paris, ending in a joint gala concert at Salle Gaveau. It was the group’s second international trip to perform in its history, after a visit to Berlin for a festival in 2023.
Boyer, in addition to serving as president and as a board member before that, is a singing member of the chorale.
“Our conductor, Julia Zavadsky, spends part of her time in Europe, in Germany, actually. And so she is pretty well connected with the choral network there,” Boyer said. “And I think that was a major part of our getting introduced to this organization, having this opportunity to sing with them. They are a European group, but they’re interested in exploring the possibility of expanding their sort of geographical footprint as well.”
Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia, performs in Paris. (Courtesy of Peter Boyer/Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia)
In addition to the actual performances, highlights of the trip, Boyer said, included a cruise on the Seine River on the final night.
“It was just a great way, at the end of this pretty intense five days of singing, [to get into] mixing and mingling with people from other choirs,” he said.
Among those at the event was a choir from Leipzig, Germany, which performed Jewish music, despite the majority of them being non-Jews. One member told Boyer that the choir rose out of the members’ wish to keep that community’s historical Jewish community alive, despite not many Jewish people remaining there. There was also a group, he said, from Ukraine, who left an active war zone, via an 18-hour bus ride, to go to Paris.
“It was for me a very moving experience to be able to have a connection with folks like that whose life right now is so different than mine,” Boyer said. “Yet when we’re together singing we have a moment together and we’re one, and it just was marvelous.”
And while the group had worried a bit about potential antisemitism before traveling to Paris, nothing of that nature took place. At one point, a small group from Nashirah was having dinner while “a pretty noisy pro-Palestinian demonstration” was taking place across the street, but Boyer characterized that as more of an “awkward moment” than anything else.
Nashirah has been around for 24 years and has 35 singers, most of whom made the trip to France. The name of the group comes from the Hebrew word nashir, which means “we sing,” and the additional syllable adjusts it to “we must sing.”
Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia, performs in Paris. (Courtesy of Peter Boyer/Nashirah, the Jewish Chorale of Greater Philadelphia)
“We perform music that is related in some way to our Jewish heritage. Some of it is very spiritual, some of it is fun, some of it is kind of out there in terms of the connection to Judaism, but it’s all related,” Boyer said.
“To sing alongside so many passionate Jewish musicians from across the globe — especially at a time when the Jewish community worldwide is facing such profound challenges — was deeply moving and reaffirming. Music became our shared language of resilience, connection and hope,” Nashirah’s artistic director, Dr. Julia Zavadsky, said in a press release about the trip.
Stephen Silver is a Broomall-based freelance writer.