THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 8, 1995 TAG: 9504070060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, MUSIC CRITIC
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
THE OFFICE AT the Portsmouth synagogue is filled with music. At Gomley Chesed Congregation, centuries of song are preserved in books and records.
But the most valuable stash is in the rabbi's heart, a legacy of countless childhood Fridays.
``On the Sabbath, the lights were not turned on. We didn't answer the telephone,'' said Rabbi Philip S. Krohn. ``It was a warmth of singing on Friday night.''
Like his father, and his grandfathers, and ancestors on both sides of his family, Krohn trained as a cantor - the singer who intones prayers during the Sabbath service. Krohn believes the art of the cantor is dying, and for a decade, he has organized cantorial concerts at Gomley Chesed.
For Sunday's 10th anniversary concert, Krohn has invited Iranian singer Farid Dardashti and Deborah Cooke Marlowe of Philadelphia, each of whom combines a cantorial career with operatic appearances. Krohn will also sing with pianist and former Virginia Symphony music director Winston Dan Vogel.
The concert is an opportunity for both Jewish and non-Jewish audience members to hear florid, deeply emotional singing that goes straight to the religion's ancient, Middle Eastern roots.
``Sabbath used to be the time when the poor Jew could come to a synagogue on a Friday night and expect a concert,'' Krohn said. ``Friday night and Saturday morning was a time when the Jew became a king. He dressed in special clothing. The food was different. The aromas you smelled on Friday night and Saturday morning - the foods during the week didn't compare with that.''
Krohn won't reveal his age - he jokes that his wife doesn't even know - but he's old enough to remember a golden age of cantorial singing. He rattles off names of cantors and rabbis the way baseball fans reminisce about Gehrig, DiMaggio and Williams.
Krohn was home-schooled in Hebrew tradition. His father, Rabbi Henoch Krohn, studied with cantor and composer Abraham Baer Birenbaum in Czestochowa, Poland. Then he emigrated to New York.
``He was in his twenties by then,'' Krohn said. ``When he first came, he gave a concert. They sold tickets to hear him chant the service on the Sabbath. Fifty cents a ticket.''
The elder Krohn later moved to Scranton, Pa., and raised four boys, in a house sometimes visited by itinerant rabbis.
``It happened in many Jewish communities all over the United States,'' Krohn said. ``This cantor knocks on the door of this little house we have in Scranton. He asks if he can conduct a service on the Sabbath in place of my father. Whatever my father made as rabbi we shared. It wasn't much.
``We'd sit around on a Saturday and listen to some of these people talk. We'd hear the singing of the Talmud in the early morning.''
By the time little Philip reached middle-school age, he was sent to study at yeshiva in New York. He took music lessons and, like his father, sang for money.
``Yeshiva always had trouble raising money in those years,'' he recalled. ``They'd send little Phil Krohn out to sing a couple of selections. The more people applauded, the more I liked it.''
He liked it enough to earn bachelor's and master's degrees from the School of Sacred Music in New York and to graduate from the Cantor's Conservatory of America. He became cantor of Temple Emmanuel in Philadelphia. Among his choir members was the young Marlowe, who has sung opera throughout Europe and now is cantor of Beth Israel Synagogue in Lebanon, Pa.
Along the way, Krohn worked on the lighter side of Jewish music, performing Broadway material at Jewish resorts in Poconos, just as Vogel would between conducting dates.
``I would do a couple of show tunes and close with a Hebrew song,'' Krohn said, smiling and adding that the audience was confused by his blond hair and blue eyes. ``They would look at me and say, `You don't look Jewish,' and I would say, `A Jewish friend taught me those.' ''
One of Krohn's children is about to graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University with a major in theater and is entertaining on a Richmond cruise ship - preserving ``The Jazz Singer'' tradition of cantors' sons turning to the stage.
In the tradition of the cantor/composers whose works line the shelves of his office, Krohn in 1964 composed a service for cantor and youth choirs that has been performed widely. But by the '70s, he had become disheartened over the diminishing role of the cantor in Jewish life.
``The cantor, in those early years, often was the one who was able to take those words and make them live,'' he said. ``The congregation no longer understood what I was singing.''
He became a rabbi and has served at Gomley Chesed for a decade, occasionally reviving his talents as a cantor.
Soon after his arrival, he recalled, ``they were looking for fund-raisers. I said: `I'm going to do what I know how to do.' And I also wanted them to hear some outstanding cantors.
``I'm glad that there are people who continue to come year after year. There are probably as many non-Jews as Jews who come to hear these now. This is an art that should not be forgotten.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Rabbi Philip S. Krohn of Chesed Synagogue has carried on a family
tradition as a cantor and is organizer of the 10th Anniversary
Cantorial Concert.
Iranian singer Farid Dardashti and Deborah Cooke Marlowe of
Philadelphia, each of whom combines a cantorial career with operatic
appearances, will perform at Gomley Chesed.
MUSIC
TENTH ANNIVERSARY CANTORIAL CONCERT
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
by CNB