2017 was a great year for Hello, Goodbye, & Peace.
The year started off with our annual MLK Interfaith Shabbat Service where HG&P serves as the house band, accompanying the joined choirs of Ebenzer Baptist Church and The Temple. Including 3-4 original HG&P compositions is always a personal highlight but nothing beats joining arms and singing We Shall Overcome or hearing Reverend Warnock give his annual 45 minute sermon. This year’s MLK Shabbat experience was made even more memorable because of an impromptu video we recorded as a submission for NPR’s Tiny Desktop Concert.
Also in January, HG&P released its 4th album, Menschology. Menschology features 18 original compositions covering a variety of musical genres from meditative to 90s alternative. It’s even got a hidden track at the end. I guess it’s not hidden anymore. Here’s one of the tracks from Menschology called “Praying with our Feet.”
Wrapping up January, in partnership with The Davis Academy, HG&P released a music video of the song, “Rise Up.” It was a great honor to have Congressman John Lewis introduce the music video as well as to be invited for an interview at WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station.
In February, I travelled to Chicago to lead several workshops as well as morning Tefilah at the bi-annual ECE-RJ Convention. Hanging out with Early Childhood Educators of Reform Judaism is always inspiring. There’s a lot of teaching and learning that takes place when this community of educators gets together.
In March, HG&P played a mini-set during the Central Conference of American Rabbis Convention. This was a special opportunity to share the music with several hundred rabbinic colleagues. Rabbis can be a tough crowd and their enthusiastic reception was very energizing.
During the summer months HG&P began working on album #5. It’s truly a blessing to be in the recording studio with the inimitable Will Robertson. While we were recording I started getting reports from Davis Academy students at Blue Star Camp in North Carolina. Their fabulous songleader, Penny White, had come across Rise Up and made it the hit song of the summer there!
Early September provided me with an opportunity to celebrate my birthday in style. I spent the day smoking a perfect brisket and then got to feed some good friends and play Grateful Dead songs around the fire all night long. I’m hoping that’ll be a new tradition. Same with making Havdallah a weekly ritual for our family around the kitchen table.
The High Holy Day Season was a busy one this year. For Selichot, HG&P led an evening of study, creative writing, and musical worship at The Temple. For Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I once again had the honor of serving as the rabbi for Reform High Holy Days at Emory Hillel, serving the entire Hillels of Georgia community. It’s hard to believe this was year 9 for me in that capacity.
Following on the heels of The High Holy Days, I had the sacred honor of accompanying The Davis Academy’s Middle School Show Choir, The Davis Decibelles, for their annual performance at Cafe Europa, a monthly gathering of Atlanta area Holocaust survivors. It was very humbling to include several original compositions in that performance alongside some of the enduring classics of Jewish music from the ages.
The year ended with a visit to Greensboro, NC where I served as a scholar-in-residence at The American Hebrew Academy over Shabbat and then spent a few hours working with the religious school teachers at Temple Emanuel. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Greensboro and found both communities to be quite welcoming and engaging.
Also at year’s end, HG&P and The Davis Academy joined forces for another music video, this one Chanukah themed. After recording a new version of the Chanukah classic, Mi Yimaleil, featuring The Davis Academy’s 4th-5th grade singing ensemble, The Magical Melodies, directed by Michelle Gimpelevich, we made a quick lyric-video that we used to generate excitement for our Chanukiah lighting at Town Brookhaven on Night 7.
So 2017 was a year of creativity, connectivity, music, scholarship, and so much more. I feel blessed to have had such a wonderful year for HG&P.