My married daughter came into my house one day and, as she
usually does, flitted over to the tape recorder to see if we
had any new tapes or CDs.
"Hey, what's this?" she asked, picking up a new CD. "What a
beautiful picture on the cover!" She put the music on. "What
great music! Where'd you get this, Mommy?"
"I got this from a friend for my birthday," I said. "Do you
like it?"
"I sure do! It's different, somehow. I know — the
melodies come through so clearly. It's as if each instrument
sings alone but at the same time, intertwines with the
others, the flute with the clarinet and violin. I do like it.
I wonder how the musicians came to make such an unusual
tape."
Well, that made me wonder, too. So I did the simple thing one
does in our close-knit Israeli world: I called up the
violinist.
"There are two sisters and two brothers in our family, the
Kohns, and every sibling has a large family, b"H," said
Rochel. "Our parents' fiftieth anniversary was coming up and
we wanted to do something special for them. My sister-in-law
had the idea that my oldest brother, Yitzchok, an
accomplished photographer, could take pictures of all the
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Then we other three
could play Jewish music to accompany the pictures."
So Rochel (on violin), Devorah (on flute) and R' Daniel (on
clarinet) combined forces and produced 20 minutes of Jewish
music that they themselves had arranged on a CD. The fiftieth
anniversary was a success; Mr. And Mrs. Kohn shepped
nachas, and the siblings took a second look (I suppose
one should say: a listen) at the music they had produced.
"We like the recording," explains Rochel, "and wanted to
share this music with others. We thought that this would be a
good opportunity to revive old Jewish melodies, the ones our
Bubbies and Zeidies knew. If this music could be in our
children's and grandchildren's hearts, the melodies would not
be forgotten." And the idea of a widely available CD was
born. What came from this is a full scale, 65 minute CD to be
distributed by Noam Productions.
"My friend has a little boy who heard our music. His mother
was sure her son would not care for Ne'imot Yiteinu
because he was used to loud and raucous music. To her
surprise, the boy loved the CD and asked for it again and
again. When my sister Devorah heard the story, she said, `I'm
not surprised. He had just never heard real music like this.'
In another case, a 10-year-old boy came running into his
house and stopped short. `Mommy, that's beautiful
music,' he exclaimed."
All the melodies are known, but the arrangements are
original. Each musician wrote the solos personally, and then
Devorah, the flute-playing sister, did most of the arranging
with the help and support of her husband.
"I feel that the arrangements didn't come from my thoughts.
They were a gift from Hashem," Devorah told me in a phone
conversation. "In fact, I feel that the very name of the CD
was a gift from Hashem.
"You see, as we were working on the CD, we discussed its
name. Each of us felt strongly that the name should express
something meaningful and deep. Then one day, as I was
davening, the words `ne'imot yiteinu' leaped
out at me. The translation is `To the blessed G-d, sweet
melodies shall be offered.' And that is what we wanted to
do.
"`Sweet melodies' also expresses the type of music on the
disk. A few hours later, Rochel called me. She had the same
experience in davening that very day! Those words had
leaped out at her, too! And then we discovered that we had
been praying at the very same time! So we felt that as we
were offering this music to Hashem, He had given us its
name."
She finished by saying, "We want this music to be a gift to
Am Yisroel. People have said that it touches their
souls, and that it's calming and uplifting. Musicians have
told us that the instrumentation, arrangements and
performance are outstanding."
Rochel had told me that she had come to Israel not only to
learn more Torah, but also to seek a way to integrate Torah
and music; she wanted to have her music express Torah as much
as possible. When she and Devorah played in the women's band,
Tofa'ah, they learned to improvise. They all created a
spiritual atmosphere of putting Torah into the concerts.
Both sisters have spent many years in raising their families.
As Devorah said, "We both felt that we also wanted to reach
out in a way that wouldn't intrude on the family. We wanted
to share our gift of music. This CD provided this. As we were
recording, in the studio the cousins were babysitting and
playing in the next room.
Rochel added, "Because we were playing in a family group, I
felt I could express myself more easily. As siblings, we have
similar ways of expression and we share the ability to allow
each other to express emotions freely through our music."
The Kohns all seem to be so special to me. I wonder what
their parents are like. And besides that, how had they
reacted to their fiftieth anniversary present?
"It was both a surprise and a heartwarming experience,"
said Mrs. Kohn. "For eleven years, we had taken the whole
family on vacation near the date of our anniversary, so we
could all be together. At the last vacation, our oldest son,
Yitzchok, took lots of photographs of the children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We didn't think it
was unusual and then on our anniversary, all of our children
came and presented us with the beautiful pictures and music
on a CD. We played it and found it thrilling to see and hear
our family production.
"Afterwards, the children decided to make a professional CD.
With this, they reach out and share their music with other
people. They wanted to bring the happiness that they saw us
enjoy to others, and that's what they have achieved. The
music brings joy — one's heart sings with the melodies.
My feeling is that the music is beautiful and pure, and each
niggun has religious significance."
Did you encourage the study of music when the children
were growing up?"
"Music has always been a very important part of our
children's lives, from the time they were very young. Three
out of the four played instruments, and our oldest son's
talent is art."
How did it happen that everyone ended up living in Israel?
That is certainly unusual for a family that raised all the
children in America."
"We had an Orthodox home. Each child decided to come on
aliya separately. They felt that one can't pray and
ask to come to Israel — and not do it. That's not
living a life of integrity. You have to be where Hashem wants
you to be. We pray every day that Hashem gather us from the
four corners of the earth — so what else can you do?
But we purposely had to hold each back from making
aliya until they finished school."
Devorah: "Each of us came to Israel at different times to
study Torah for a year. Before that year, our parents gave us
books to read and to think about that step, to build our
understanding of a Jew's yearning for Eretz Yisroel.
"When we came, we didn't want to leave — and that
wasn't part of my parents' plan. But then they came,
themselves, and some of our extended family came, too. The
cellist on the CD is our aunt."
I had noticed that there were some other musicians on the
CD besides the Kohn siblings. How did they work out recording
with other musicians?
"Well," says Rochel, "my brother and R' Zeidman, who
played guitar on the CD, recorded together. R' Zeidman
arranged the music for those pieces. Devorah arranged the
music with our pianist, Miriam Zlotnik. The few times my
brother spoke with her, he did it over the phone. And then,
at the recording studio, they recorded the music in separate
rooms."
Besides that, the arrangements use modern technology to
express their musical ideas fully. One piece, for example,
has four flutes playing at once; all those are Devorah, who
recorded herself on four tracks, and mixed it later. Other
songs use a number of clarinets or violins. These are all
Kohns.
But what really comes through in this CD is not
technological mastery or even musical prowess, although these
certainly are present. What comes through with shining
strength is the feeling, the spirituality, the meaning behind
each melody. And as interested as I was in what lay behind
the making of this CD, in the end, I always came back to the
simplicity of listening and enjoying the sweet song of the
Kohns.
