by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

April 08, 2008

Carried aloft by the notes of a single piano, the haunting melody of “Hatikva” filled the sanctuary of the Gill Memorial Chapel at Rider University in Lawrenceville during a late-March rehearsal there.

But this was not the familiar Israeli anthem. It was instead a poignant new “Hatikva,” spun from the creative imagination of 14-year-old Todd Alter.

Todd, son of Marshall and Caryn Alter of East Windsor, and 10-year-old Sam Snyder, son of Ira and Lisa Snyder of Lawrenceville, have been named winners of the community’s inaugural Young People’s Jewish Song Writing Contest. Sam won for his composition of a new melody for the “Sh’ma.”

The two winners will receive a cash award and the honor of hearing their songs performed by Sharim v’Sharot (People of Song), a four-part a capella choir, during an Israel@60 concert on Sunday, May 4, at 12:45 p.m. at Kehillat HaNahar, the Little Shul by the River in New Hope, Pa.

Initiated by Lawrenceville musician/educator Elayne Robinson Grossman, the musical director of Sharim v’Sharot, the contest was sponsored by the Sharim v’Sharot Foundation and the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks.

The competition ran from Jan. 1 through March 7 and was open to young people ages eight through 18. Contest judges were Caren Solomon, a Jewish music educator at Abrams; Mark Zuckerman of Roosevelt, an award-winning classical composer and a fellow with the NJ State Council of the Arts; and Cantor Mark Elson of Shir Ami-Bucks County Jewish Congregation in Newtown, Pa.

“Hatikva” is a first composition for Todd, a ninth-grader at Hightstown High School who plays piano, French horn, and trumpet. “I was trying to think of a Jewish melody that was sort of mellow, but happy at the same time,” he said.

Winning the contest was exciting, he added. “I wrote a good song and it’s recognized. I feel like my musical talents are recognized.”

Sam, a fifth-grader at the Abrams Hebrew Academy in Yardley, Pa., said he created his melody for the Sh’ma on his flute, which he has been studying for the past two years.

“I basically started with my flute and whatever sounded good, I wrote down, and eventually I came up with a song,” he said. “It’s kind of peaceful.”

He feels pretty happy about winning the contest, Sam added. “It feels good,” he said. “It feels good to be writing a Jewish song.”

And, said Grossman, that’s exactly what she had in mind when she came up with the idea for a contest.

“I wanted young people to have a way to express themselves about any and all of the things they love,” she said in an interview before the rehearsal. “I also wanted to make children aware that they do have abilities that can be tapped into. And by using Jewish texts, they can themselves be a link to the older generation, to the present, and to the future.”

Contest entries had to be a song with words, containing a main melody and a contrasting melody, according to Grossman. She called Sam’s variation on the Sh’ma “a very sweet melody.”

“It’s such an ethereal, simple, yet eloquent song,” she said. As for Todd’s “Hatikva,” Grossman said, “His is more of a folk song, but in the best sense of the word — a song of the people. It has a really nice, sweet flow to it.”

Grossman said she was pleased to learn that many of the young people who entered the contest have continued to write music. “Now that the faucet is turned on, they haven’t stopped composing,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful.

“Music is something that connects people together, regardless of their age,” she said. “Music just reaches out and connects people. That’s what these kids have done for us. They’ve shown us we can make every single Jewish experience our own.

“That’s one of the missions of Sharim v’Sharot — to enable people to see Jewish experience in a new light,” she added. “Jewish life should be something that’s alive, dynamic, in the moment, moving forward.”

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