Let me introduce myself, I am Rachel Wolman. I hail from the DC metropolitan area and have finished my first year of college. This summer I will be working at the URJ Camp Newman-Swig located in the beautiful town of Santa Rosa, over a hour north from the San Fransico bay area and right outside of Napa Valley. This is where I will be spending my Summer as a songleader. I couldn't even begin to tell you how excited I am for this Summer. I am also excited to give you all an insiders view of the life of a working summer camp songleader. I plan on updating once a week during the summer about all the things I go through, experience, and anything I feel that this group will find of interest.
I have a lot of goals for this Summer. I also have an amazing new songleading team that I get to work with this Summer. As the only songleader who has songlead at Newman before, it's going to be a very fresh feel this year. It's also a privilege that Newman feels we should have a lot of great mentors coming over the summer. For the first two weeks of camp Dan Nichols will be here. I am not sure who is coming after him, but I know it includes Rick Recht, Noam Katz, Alan Goodis, Cantor Wally, and a few others. Not to worry I will keep you updated on everything!
Hava Nashira gave me a lot of ideas and great contacts to help me this Summer. I want to bring every song and thing I learned from Hava, but I know I won't be able to do it all. There are for sure some songs that I want to teach.
Anyways, if you want to know more about my Summer between updates of this blog feel free to follow me on twitter because I update that like it's my job. www.twitter.com/rachelwolman
And if you have any questions or would like to discuss anything with me you can always email me at RachelAnneWolman@gmail.com
Expect lots of updates over the summer! I leave for Newman tomorrow.
Shalom
I thought I would add my two cents (or is that more for inflation) from Dover, NH! Having just had ear surgery and being "stereophonically challenged," as well as having some vocal issues, I am still finding myself able to share music just as before. I am looking forward to going to Crane Lake Camp for my two-week faculty stint on July 12-26, which, this year, will offer me some of the musical nourishment I didn't get from Hava Nashira, having stayed, instead, in my congregation to be a rabbi on Shavuot. As I have listened to some of the recordings from this year's HN (thank you to my clandestine source!), I am already amazed, but not surprised, that some of the songs sung there were also songs that I incorporated in to our Shavuot evening music/study session at Temple Israel of Dover, NH, as well as our Confirmation service on May 29 (the first one held at the congregation in many years). I am thankful for Facebook, the HANASHIR list, this blog and other sources that keep this Jewish musical community connected. It's easy to feel alone, and just reading about someone else's ideas, triumphs and challenges can offer a sense of collegiality and inspiration. I have downloaded 4 Jewish CDs on iTunes and from oySongs over the last week, and I will be posting a couple of my newer songs on my reverbnation/larrykarol site. I hope that the song-sharing can continue throughout the year as we wait for another opportunity to be together in one place. Also, once I develop my "God on my iPod" song list for my Crane Lake mini-course, I will post that list here (that's one of my next projects). Have a good summer, everyone!!!
ReplyDeleteL'shalom,
Larry Karol