Over the course of his career as a musician, Hazzan Ramón Tasat realized that most people thought they couldn’t sing.
“They felt that they were singing out of tune, or that they didn’t have good rhythm, and that was emphasized and aggravated by family members who will tell them that they were really bad at it,” Tasat said.
The Silver Spring cantor even met people who were told to “smile but not sing” in grade school choirs.
“I felt that it was such a pity for those that really wanted to sing, that they wouldn’t have that possibility,” Tasat said.
In 2008, he took it upon himself to build a space for these aspiring singers.
“People in many ways became convinced that they couldn’t sing, even though they would love to, so that was the whole concept of Kolot HaLev being born,” he said.
Kolot HaLev — Hebrew for “voices of the heart” — is a greater Washington-area community choir that focuses on Jewish choral music. The 35-member group sings pieces from the medieval times up to contemporary popular music, such as “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“My idea was not that we will arrive at the Metropolitan Opera or anything like that, but that we could, with proper training, some discipline and some stability … that it was possible to shape the voices of people and give them an opportunity to express themselves musically,” Tasat said.
The Jewish community choir is now celebrating its 18th anniversary, or its “chai” year. Kolot HaLev will mark this milestone with a May 31 concert featuring 18 selections, one from each year’s concert.
Each year has a theme. This year’s, of course, is Kolot HaLev’s 18th anniversary. Last year focused on psalms, and 2027 will be Latin American music, reflecting Tasat’s Argentine roots.
The community also held a gala in April that “celebrated our whole history,” according to Kolot HaLev president Sandi Blumenreich.
“The choir did a little bit of singing, but we mostly explored our history through the different presidencies throughout the 18 years,” Blumenreich said. “It turns out there’s a handful of people who have been with Ramón since day one of the choir.”
Kolot HaLev stemmed from two of Tasat’s observations: that synagogue choirs are scarce — “They are, if any, very, very few and far between” — and that there was a lot more to Jewish music beyond the greats, Shlomo Carlebach and Debbie Friedman.
With the goal of “bring[ing] back music that was incredibly beautiful,” Tasat donned his musicologist hat to study Italian Jewish, French Jewish and Sephardic music.
“I would also look for music that was palatable for the choir and would write new arrangements for, because it didn’t exist,” he said. “Everything was from nothing, really.”
Today, Kolot HaLev boasts a library of more than 1,000 scores spanning seven languages.
Tasat spoke to the challenges of American public school systems’ lack of music education.
“People that come to Kolot HaLev many, many times come with very rudimentary knowledge of music,” he said. “And that’s OK.”
Blumenreich said she was one of these amateurs when she joined the choir three years ago at the encouragement of a friend at her synagogue.
“They don’t even know how wide or far their voices go,” Tasat added. “So my work is to begin addressing that to provide them what is called vocal technique.”
He works with each singer to place them in the correct vocal ranges. “Vocal cords are a muscle that is trained, so I have found that through time, as people begin to train and learn how to breathe better and use their body better, they begin to find color in their voice,” Tasat explained. “They begin to find that their voice is more extensive than they thought it was.”
The cantor used a “somewhat rigorous system” to teach his singers musical form. Every Thursday during the pandemic, the group met for an hour on Zoom for sessions on harmony, counterpoint and how the body works to produce sound.
“People began to understand that, yes, to sing invites emotion, but there are many other aspects — mathematical, among others — that they have perhaps never tasted,” Tasat said.
“[I’ve learned] a whole lot,” said Blumenreich, who also takes private lessons with Tasat. “I’ve learned how to hold myself, how to find, as Ramón says, my ‘pretty voice,’ not have to use your whole body, and be conscious of what you’re doing.”
Despite Kolot HaLev being a choir that’s welcoming to new singers, Tasat holds his members to high standards.
“One of the complicated things about choirs that are clearly amateur or at least nonprofessional, is that sometimes, people think, ‘I just come and sing, and I don’t have to learn anything else,’” he said. “I have found across the aisle that when that happens, people come for a little bit and then they lose interest.”
“I am demanding,” Tasat added.
When members complain that something is hard, he responds, “I always told you it was going to be hard, but I also told you you can do it.”
“What I try to do [is] to make connections, to create bridges, to make people feel that they belong,” Tasat said.
Clearly, it’s worked, if you ask Blumenreich.
“[The] people are just so wonderful,” she said. “[Tasat] seems to attract a group of people, sort of like a magnet, but … not every group could — not everyone can do that.”
“You don’t have to be Jewish. You don’t have to read music. You just have to want to sing,” Blumenreich added.
